Andrew Hurley - The Loney

Seeing me in pain, he looked momentarily concerned, but turned away and started walking across the heather.

I called him back. He ignored me. I put my sopping coat on and went after him, stumbling through the matted grass and the peat-haggs. I grabbed him by the sleeve, but he shrugged me off and carried on, more determined than I’d ever seen him before.

A dense fog was coming in off the sea now and I thought that he would be too frightened to go much further. But, despite the grey thickening and the silence that fell upon the place, Hanny went on, taking long strides, jumping across the bogs and pools of water, eventually coming to the remains of an old farmhouse or a barn, it was hard to tell what it had been. Only a few ruined walls remained, roughly forming a rectangle that was littered with other rocks and roof slates. Perhaps people had once lived here. Scavenged from the sea. Worshipped at the chapel and tried to pin God to the island like one of the butterflies in our room at Moorings.

Beneath the sound of Hanny’s boots going through the debris I could hear something else. Voices, calls. I tried to make Hanny stop so that I could hear it properly and in the end had to kick away one of his feet so that he fell. He sprawled and the rifle clattered away. He went off on all fours to retrieve it and sat down on a rock to wipe off the mud.

I put my finger to my lips and Hanny stopped what he was doing and looked at me, breathing hard with anger.

‘Listen,’ I said.

The sound of a dog barking came out of the mist, but it was hard to tell where it was coming from or how far away it was. I had no doubt it was Collier’s. It was the same harsh barking that I’d heard in the field outside Moorings where the ewe had led its lamb to feed on the new grass.

‘Hanny, we need to go back,’ I said. ‘We can’t let them find us here. And I’m cold. Aren’t you cold?’

I had started to shiver. My clothes seemed to be wrapped around my bones.

Hanny looked at me and although a flash of concern passed over his face, he turned and clambered over the broken down wall he was sitting against without waiting for me. I didn’t have the strength to hold him back anymore. All I could do was follow him as best I could as his form slipped in and out of the fog.

I eventually caught up with him at the edge of a brook that came gushing milky-white down a gully of rocks and slid away through the limp bracken towards the sea.

Something was wrong.

I touched Hanny on the arm. He was staring straight ahead.

‘What is it?’ I said and, following his eyes, saw that there was a hare sitting on the other side looking back.

It turned its head to one side, sniffed the air, looked back at us, twitched one of its tall spoon ears, and then bolted just a little too late as a dog emerged from the fog, careered into it and tumbled it over in the mud. The hare kicked with its back legs, once, twice, trying to rake off the jaws that were clamped to its neck, but was limp a second later as the dog thrashed it from side to side and chewed out its throat.

This time I got a firm grip on Hanny’s arm and tried to pull him away. If we went there and then I thought we could get away. But he stood rooted to the spot, still looking past me, over my shoulder, not at the hare or the dog but at the two men that had come out of the mist and were standing there watching us.

It was Parkinson and Collier. They were dressed in blue overalls and hard boots caked in mud. Scarves wound around their necks and mouths. Their flat caps dripped with the damp.

Collier had a chain over his shoulder. He lowered his scarf and called the dog to him and when it refused he went over and kicked it off the hare onto its side. He raised his hand to the dog and with a well practised obedience it whined and cowered and Collier got a hold of its collar so that he could pass the chain through it. Parkinson continued to stare at us, cold breath misting around his face.

The brook cluttered over the rocks and bracken.

Still holding Hanny’s arm I started to walk away, but Parkinson moved with an unexpected quickness. He sloshed through the water in a few steps and grabbed the hood of my parka, bringing me to heel like Collier had done with his dog. He turned me to face him and gently rearranged my coat so that it no longer strangled me.

‘There’s no need for thee to rush off,’ he said.

He took his hands off me and flicked the wetness from them.

‘Hast tha been for a dip?’ he said.

He smiled when I didn’t respond, amused that I was drenched and shivering. Then he noticed the rifle Hanny was holding and took it off him. Hanny let the rifle slide out of his hands and looked down at his feet.

Parkinson fitted the stock against his shoulder and squinted through the sight.

‘Where did you get this from?’ he said.

‘We found it,’ I said.

‘It’s a bit special is this, for a lad like thee,’ he said, glancing at Hanny.

Collier caught the frown I gave Parkinson.

‘He means a retard,’ said Collier.

Parkinson took the rifle down and pulled back the bolt to open it up. Hanny had loaded it. I could see the top bullet of the clip pressed down inside the receiver.

Now that Parkinson had let go of me, I tried to lead Hanny back the way we’d come, thinking that they might settle for having the rifle off us. But Parkinson quickly held my shoulder again.

‘Don’t go just yet,’ he said.

‘Everyone will be waiting for us,’ I said.

‘Will they?’

‘We’re going today.’

‘Going? Where’s tha going?’

‘Back home to London.’

‘London?’ he said. ‘Tha wouldn’t make it back across to the mainland, never mind London.’

‘We can swim,’ I said, and Collier laughed.

‘Nay,’ said Parkinson with mock concern. ‘I don’t want thee drowned.’

‘Look,’ I said. ‘We’re going home today. Do what you like at Moorings. Take what you want from the place. I don’t care. No one will care.’

It was bravado founded entirely on fear and went as quickly as it had arisen the moment Parkinson laughed and turned to Collier.

‘I’m not sure I like that accusation. We’re not thieves,’ he said. ‘Are we?’

‘Nay,’ said Collier.

The sound of a baby crying came from the direction of the house. The dog looked up. Parkinson and Collier glanced at one another. The crying stopped.

‘Here,’ said Parkinson, serious now. ‘It’s nowt personal. But we can’t let thee go. We’re going to have to take out some insurance. You understand what I mean, don’t you? By insurance?’

I looked at him and he put his hand on my shoulder again.

‘It’s the way it has to be. There’s nowt you or I can do about it. You just fucked up, that’s all. Wrong place, wrong time. Come to the house and we’ll get everything sorted out.’

***

Leonard was loading his car when we got to Thessaly. Clement was there too, fetching and carrying boxes. When he saw us he stopped and looked at us with — what was it? — pity, guilt?

‘Carry on Clement,’ said Leonard.

Clement nodded slowly and moved towards the Daimler and slotted the box he was carrying into the back.

Leonard came closer and lit a cigar. Collier’s dog started barking loudly and straining on the chain. Leonard looked at Collier and Collier, capitulating, took out a frayed leather muzzle from his pocket and fitted it around the dog’s face.

‘You must love it here,’ said Leonard, turning to us. ‘You just can’t stay away, can you?’

He took a drag on his cigar and looked at Parkinson.

‘Are you sure this is necessary?’ he said. ‘In an hour’s time there’ll be no trace that anyone’s ever been here. If I were you, I’d send them back across when the tide goes out and leave it at that. They’ve already given their word to keep their mouths shut. What the hell are they going to say anyway? They don’t know anything.’