Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Is that an Ash?’ he asked, after a minute or so’s silence, indicating towards an Elm.

‘Nope. We only have one Ash…’ the gardener pointed. ‘It’s over there…’

Kane stopped.

‘Could I have a closer look at it?’

The gardener frowned.

‘Please? ’

Kane gazed over at him, appealingly.

‘You have a special interest in trees, eh?’ the gardener enquired. Kane nodded. ‘So how do you go about identifying it?’ he wondered, heading off towards it, at speed.

‘That’s easy,’ the gardener followed him without complaint. ‘In winter, by the hard, black buds, set either side of its twigs and in late summer and autumn by its keys…’

‘Keys?’ Kane echoed.

‘Yeah. Special seeds — like flat, cream-coloured tadpoles — or little skittles…’

‘Keys?’ Kane repeated. ‘Why do they call them that?’

‘Because in the very old days they used to resemble the actual keys that people used for their locks.’

‘Key,’ Kane mused, dreamily, ‘kay…’

He shook his head. He mind turned to Peta.

‘Here we are…’

They drew close to the tree. It was a handsome specimen–60 or 70 foot high. The gardener patted the trunk, fondly. ‘They thrive on calcium,’ he said.

‘Chalk…’ Kane interjected.

‘Yeah. Limestone. So they’re a good all-rounder. Fast growing. Live about 150-odd years — not nearly so long as some of the old, churchyard Yews, but they produce a fine, strong wood, very tough. Great wood for hammer and axe handles, great for oars or hockey sticks. A marvellous, traditional British timber.’

Kane slowly circled the tree, inspecting the neat meshwork of ribs in its attractive grey bark. He circled the tree a second time and was almost losing heart when his eye alighted on something — something very tiny — sticking out of the trunk. A pin.

‘Ready to head off yet?’ the gardener asked, impatiently stamping his feet against the cold.

‘Sure.’

Kane reached out his hand and extracted the pin. He held it between his fingers for a second, thoughtfully, then he removed Maude’s small, pink ribbon from his thumb and attached it, with a careless smirk, to his lapel.

The Saltings was a large, well-kept, modern bungalow set on a generous parcel of land (although built inexplicably close to the road) which projected itself — from a distance, at least — as a perfectly uncontentious and coherent whole, but which was actually — from close quarters — plainly nothing more than the sum of its well-executed parts (a series of extensions, add-ons, lean-tos, conservatories and sheds): not so much a house as a perplexing amalgam of sudden whims, capricious fancies and afterthoughts.

On pulling through the large, wrought-iron gates (left casually open) and into the stark, smoothly concreted courtyard beyond, Beede was unable to work out which piece — if any — of the visible structure might be considered ‘original’.

It came as no surprise, he mused (as the car drew to a neat halt), that the property was owned by a family of builders, although he was curious to observe the unusually large number of solar energy panels on the roof and the fact that all the doors were constructed extra-wide (with neat, wooden ramps and strong guide-rails attached); leading him to the inevitable conclusion — and quite correctly, as it turned out — that either one or more of the inhabitants might be wheelchair-bound.

The short drive over to The Saltings had been (much to Beede’s intense relief) both easy and uncontentious. Dory’s behaviour had been good, his conversation lucid, and his motor-skills (in both senses of the word) little short of peerless.

‘Did you think to phone in advance?’ Beede enquired, as Dory turned off the engine, unfastened his seat-belt and gazed over towards the house.

‘Uh…No, I didn’t, actually…’ he admitted, a tinge of regret seeping into his voice.

‘Well hopefully someone’ll be home,’ Beede shrugged, ‘I’m pretty sure I saw a light on…’

He opened his door and began to climb out, but as he stepped free of the vehicle, he felt a sudden, sharp, extraordinarily painful shooting sensation in his left leg, as if the very marrow from his bones was being extracted through a hole in the base of his foot. He gasped, shocked, clinging on to the door for support.

‘Beede?’

Dory was staring over at him, concerned.

Beede tried to catch his breath.

‘I’m fine,’ he insisted. ‘It’s nothing, just…’ he closed his eyes for a moment, ‘just a cramp. I must’ve been sitting at the wrong angle…’

As he spoke, one of several doors leading from the property flew open and a handsome, diminutive yet generously proportioned woman (in late middle age) with a mop of tightly permed, heavily gelled, dyed-black hair came tripping down the ramp towards them. She was sporting a sumptuous, fuchsia-pink velour tracksuit, a pair of purple-feather stiletto-heeled slippers and a saucy apron emblazoned with the cartoon-style bikini-clad form of a much younger female.

Just as she was stepping down on to the concrete, however, a large, scruffy van pulled into the courtyard — swerving sharply to avoid Dory’s Rover — and had barely drawn to a stand-still before a small, intensely genial, wide-faced man had jumped out from the driver’s side. Beede could immediately tell that the pair were related — mother and son, perhaps.

‘I thought you was the meat-man!’ the woman called over to Beede, placing her hands on to her hips and appraising him intently. ‘But you ain’t the bloomin’ meat-man, are ya?’

‘Uh…no…Sorry, we…’

Beede turned to Dory to furnish an explanation.

‘We’re actually looking for a Mr Spivey, a Mr Garry Spivey,’ Dory said.

‘That’ll be me, then, Guv,’ Garry stepped up to him, holding out his hand.

‘You’ll have to excuse my old mum,’ he confided (loud enough to be clearly overhead by everyone). ‘She has the most ridiculous crush on our local butcher…’

‘ Oi! ’ she bellowed.

‘Less of that!’ ‘Like a big, teenage girl , she is,’ Garry expanded, with a gentle grin. ‘Leave her alone for twenty minutes an’ the next thing you know she’ll’ve bought half a cow.’

‘It weren’t a cow!’ his mother clucked, outraged. ‘It was a soddin’ pig, an’ you didn’t need askin’ twice to polish those lovely chops off, did ya?’

Garry smirked, unyielding.

‘Well I’m very pleased to meet you both,’ Isidore shook Garry’s hand (plainly slightly taken aback by this high-octane familial exchange). ‘My name is Isidore, and this is my friend…’

‘We’ve met before, I reckon,’ Garry interrupted him, nodding towards Beede.

‘Yes. I think I knew your father,’ Beede said. ‘Alisdair Spivey? We worked together on Dr Wilk’s Hall, when they turned it into the Ashford Museum. He was one of the most conscientious builders I ever met. His restoration work was second to none…’

‘That’s Dad, all right,’ Garry grinned, ‘a perfectionist to the bone.’

The black-haired woman snorted (as if she’d suffered herself at the hands of A. Spivey’s perfectionism). ‘Got that from ‘is nanna, he did,’ she interjected. ‘That cheeky, old mare’d send back the scones at the Savoy, she would.’

Garry smiled at his mother, nodding fondly, then returned his full attention to Isidore. ‘So what can I do for you?’ he wondered.

‘Well it’s probably more a question of…’ Dory opened the Rover’s back door and reached inside. He withdrew holding a traumatised Michelle. The spaniel was shaking violently and its hindquarters were — not untypically — drenched in urine.