Before All Else Read online

  The images of the day flash onto his screen. He’d felt like a reporter going round with his pad and pen, writing down people’s names. Have to get it right. Don’t want to upset anybody by spelling their name wrongly or giving them the wrong name altogether.

  Cecily had shown him how to ‘tag’, match up people’s faces with their names if they were already members of the site. It was rather like playing happy families. A feeling of panic comes over him, similar to the confusion he felt while pinioned by Madge on the hard chair in the post office, awaiting Mr Edge, on his first day in Bullenden. Not all are recognisable from their names alone, some choosing to identify themselves by a picture of what, he supposed, to be their avatar.

  Thereby Jacquetta from the crystals shop is identified by a winged horse; Mrs Turpin by a fat spotted teapot; Cecily by a black-and-white picture of three young girls, her sisters perhaps. Possibly Major Welding thought it rather beneath his dignity to take part in such a democratic, people-centric, vulgarian movement as social networking, but then again he hadn’t deigned to attend today either so would not be appearing in the Grand Clear-Up Album. Nor, Marcus muses, had Mr Eveans, although, as self-appointed czar of the Village Fete, if indeed one could be a czar to such a thing, one might have expected him to put in an appearance.

  What is the etiquette in this event? Should he ask people’s permission to post their pictures? Not to do so is, surely, rather invasive, rather cavalier, but Paul had just said, “Just upload them, Dad. Everyone does it.” Mob diktat had never been Marcus’s modus operandi but then again, so much is new these days. About time he caught up. If anyone objects, they can remove themselves. Can’t they?

  He slurps his soup from an oversized mug, dunking in the bread and butter, dividing his attention between the globules of butterfat spreading over the surface of his red, velvety soup and the images posting themselves one by one onto the site. One or two make him laugh. A duck put to flight by a well-aimed apple core. Someone, arms crossed, ankles crossed, asleep under a cricket umpire’s hat. One or two are rather artistic, even a little risqué. The row of stout posteriors lined up on the stone wall. Nice one of Cecily, head thrown back in laughter.

  Ned

  The house is empty and cold. The breakfast things, such as they were, are still on the kitchen table. He stacks them besides the other pots waiting to go into the dishwasher and wipes the table free of crumbs before setting up his laptop. He’ll work in the kitchen before Mandy comes home and then decamp up to the spare bedroom that acts as his office. The kitchen is warmer. The storm is picking up.

  It is all rather irrelevant how many times this recession has dipped. The outcome is undeniable. He’d had to let go three workers over the past two years, including Irene, who did the wages and the accounts. Back in the days when he had wages and accounts.

  Ned spreads out receipts on the kitchen table, for petrol and chainsaw oil. “If you let me have a total for the consumables, we’ll see what we can do,” that patronising bastard Chris Eveans had said, when he’d asked about out-of-pocket expenses. Would he notice that some of the receipts are dated before the work was even commissioned? What does it matter to that slimy toad anyway? Oh, what the heck! Ned crumples up the out-of-date receipts and lobs them into the far corner of the kitchen towards the swing bin. Defrauding is far too big a word for it but, even if it fit, he’d only be defrauding the village fund. And how could he do that when everyone had so willingly given their time. Sad cretins, all of them.

  Ned’s phone beeps. He barely hears it and chooses to ignore it anyway.

  He enters his expenses figures onto the spreadsheet. £15.37. Hardly worth the paper. Hardly worth the shame of asking. Sod it.

  His phone beeps again. It’ll be Mandy wanting him to go to the chippy. She could go herself. He isn’t going to go out again in a night like this. Fat cow. She’d come to no harm spending a day working with him rather than painting nails in that old people’s home.

  Marcus

  A congratulatory whisky might be in order tonight. What had Ned said? A good job well done. That’s exactly what it was. Marcus watches in satisfaction as people ‘Like’ the photos, some actually posting shots and comments of their own. Even Cecily, somewhere in the house opposite, is online. The web is twitching all around him.

  Ned

  Didn’t look like any fatted calf was going to be slaughtered on his behalf tonight. A can of lager would dull the ache.

  Where is Mandy?

  He flips his phone open. Two text messages. Both from Ben’s mum. He puts down the can, unopened, and presses the first message. “Sorry to bother you. Ben’s found something.” He cracks open the ring-pull with his fingernail. Bubbles froth at the opening. The sharp, metal smell of alcohol whets his senses. He squints at the second message with the can to his mouth. “Wouldn’t try and contact you unless important. Are you there?”

  Should he text back? Or phone even? They have never spoken this way. He only has her number in case of any emergency with Ben. Cradling her voice in the palm of his hand at his own kitchen table just seems too impossibly intimate. “Whats up?” he replies. Within seconds the reply comes back. “Ben found cave and kitten!!!!”

  Well, at least he hadn’t found needles or a weapon while supposedly in Ned’s care. Ben’s mum’s reply is cryptic. What does it mean? She asks for help only very rarely. He should make himself available. That he could not do if Mandy was to walk through the door at any moment. “Do U want me 2 come over?” Ned grabs his coat and van keys. If nothing else, he can park up somewhere and sit in the van while the mystery unfurls, ready to be there at a moment’s notice, should the situation warrant it. And Mandy would be none the wiser.

  The front door whips out of his hands and pulls back hard on the hinges. Clouds spin like a fairground carousel around the high moon. The night is alive with a manic energy. He drives the van round the corner and checks his phone to see if she has replied. She hasn’t. What is going on?

  Now he is in the van, should he at least drive round to the house? He knows where it is, for he’d dropped Ben off several times after a late shift. He’d usually shout a few pleasantries through the open passenger window while his mum waved from the doorstep, Ben running as if on a zip-wire between them. Occasionally he had come to the front door, if further explanation was required. He’d never been inside.

  As he approaches the junction, he sees Mandy’s car come up the road behind him and swing into their drive. She won’t have seen him in this dark part of the street.

  He parks in a corner of the pub car park, waiting for her to reply. He is an unlikely rescuer, he knows that. It might all be some kind of weird joke. A prank. Who else might get access to her phone? Did someone want to shake things up a bit and see what fell out? What had the boy found? A cave and a kitten. They seemed like trophies in some kind of a fantasy game. How is he supposed to reply to that? I’ve found an armadillo and a suit of armour? The whole thing is ridiculous. He will count to sixty and then head back home.

  His phone beeps again. Heart racing, he looks at the screen. Special offer, two pizzas for the price of one. Dammit. He texts a row of question marks to Ben’s mum. Rain falls on the van roof, an irritating noise that marks time on his indecision and impatience. He’ll set off again and make a decision at the junction past the church.

  Within five minutes, he is standing at the front door, pressing the bell until the porch light comes on. A collection of objects form an irregular heap by the door, objects that Ben had found that day – the black plastic container; some sodden, orange-speckled logs; a shoe; some shards of glass and, pushing aside a flattened football with the toe of his boot, he could see the heart-shaped stone he’d dropped into the lunch box.

  The door opens. Ben’s mum stands in the light. “Those are Ben’s finds from today. There’s more. Come in.” She is wearing thick woolly socks, two tiny pompoms on the heel swinging cr
azily from side to side as she walks into the living room.

  Ben is arranged on the sofa. “Get up, Ben. Mr Gallagher is here.”

  “Hello, Mr Gallagher.”

  The lights are low. A game show plays itself out silently on the TV in the corner. The gas fire bubbles quietly. There are no obvious signs of disaster or catastrophe. What on earth is going on? He turns to look at Ben’s mum, now even shorter than usual. She looks flustered, pulling her fingers through her hair, snagging them on the big gripper comb. She twists a strand round and round, pulling her head to one side. There is silence, until Ben starts to speak. “Look what I found, Mr Gallagher.” Ben uncups his hands to reveal a small ball of grey fluff. It looks like what came out from under the bed during one of Mandy’s annual spring cleans. Ned approaches, remembering the text about a cave and kittens.

  Whilst it is undoubtedly a charming scene, did it really warrant calling him out on a stormy night, even if it did provide a hither-to unaccorded entrée into the house? He feels far too big for the cluttered room. The air is too warm and stuffy, hard to suck down.

  “So what’s the deal, Ben?”

  “It’s a kitten, Mr Gallagher.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” This is getting a little exasperating.

  “The thing is, this kitten is far too young to be away from its mother. It’s only a couple of weeks old. We need to return it.” Ben kicks the sofa with his heel while his mum talks.

  “And..?”

  “And…Ben said he found the kitten in the cave in the field where you were working today. You’ve got the key to the gate, right? Also, I don’t really want to go down there on our own.”

  “What cave?” There isn’t a cave.”

  “Ben said there is.”

  “There is, Mr Gallagher, honest.”

  Whatever inducement there might have been for stepping over a line tacitly drawn between himself and Ben’s mum, random incidents like these were sufficient reason to restate the line and restate one’s rightful position relative to the line. The fear of becoming sucked into a different world where normal rules just don’t apply is rising within him. Give the boy a good talking to and send him to his room would be Ned’s response. Children, these days, seem to have a far greater gravitational pull on the adults around them than had ever been allowed in his day. But maybe he’ll just have to go along with this farrago till it sorts itself out. That is clearly what is expected of him. And what does he know about kids anyway?

  “OK. So, we need to go back to the field. Find this so-called cave. Return this…kitten. Go home.” Ben’s mum looks pained at the brevity of his tone; Ben, on the other hand, is nodding enthusiastically in agreement.

  “Mum says we can’t keep the kitten. It’s sad and it’s missing its mum.”

  Oh, the good Lord preserve us. “Right. Everyone. In the van. Let’s go.”

  Marcus

  The pale, oaky malt glows in the low light. Marcus, in his armchair, allows himself a rare feeling of contentment. A few minutes longer and he’ll close up for the night. Just a few moments more.

  Ned

  Driving through the estate and past his house, he can see that Mandy must have gone straight upstairs; the bedroom light is on. She hadn’t bothered to text him to find out where he was. Is that a good thing? Or not? Should he care? Or not? Oddly, there’s an uneven row of spades against the garden wall that he hadn’t seen before. Oh, yes, he remembers now.

  The wind is easing though it still barges and jostles the van down the High Street. He parks in front of the field gate. “Come on. Let’s get this over and done with.” Ben’s mum had sat immobile and silent on the short journey, Ben had chattered all the way.

  By the light of a torch, they make their way along the main path towards the bottom corner of the field where the ground rises and hummocks slightly. Ben, who had been playing stepping stones as the torch spotlit the ground, jumps down into a gully running alongside the hedge. The gusty wind plays an eerie note on some nearby telegraph wires. But for objects caught in the yellow light of the torch, everywhere is monochrome. Ned jumps down the few feet into darkness after him, leaving Ben’s mum silhouetted against the sky. They squeeze their way through brambles and tall grasses. This corner of the field had not been part of the clear-up. “In here, Mr Gallagher.”

  Ned shines the torch in Ben’s wake. His voice, previously muted by the night air, now acquires a slight echoing tone. He follows the boy to the mouth of what looks like a giant burrow. Would the White Rabbit come hurrying past? “You have to jump down, Mr Gallagher.”

  “Ben. Don’t go any further. You don’t know if it’s safe.”

  “It’s alright, Mum. I’m fine.”

  “No, Ben, your mum’s right. Stay here.”

  Ned moves Ben onto a patch where the greenery had been trampled flat, mashed into a glutinous, shiny, acidic mess, presumably by Ben earlier in the day. The burrow reveals itself in the spotlight. It isn’t a cave. But it is like a cave. No more than three strides long and two strides wide, the stone walls and floor are undoubtedly manmade; each block is hand cut and hewn to shape. The ceiling is rounded, lower than a grown man’s height. Even leaning in from the low arched entrance, his hand on the keystone, he can tell the air inside is still and cold and musty. A rustling sound and a guttural warning issue from a pile of leaves in the far corner. “Give me the kitten, Ben.” Ned takes the warm, brittle creature in his hands and places it as close to the leaves as he dares. The warning grows in pitch and intensity from the dark corner. “OK, Ben. Well. Wow! What a find!”

  “Can somebody help me down? I want to see.” Ned and Ben offer their hands up for Ben’s mum to swing down into the gully. Three abreast, they gather at the opening, peering in, silently gazing as the yellow beam picks out the chamfered edges of the stone blocks, the centuries’ slow seep of minerals, the empty clutches of slender tree roots.

  After a few minutes, by silent consent, they make their way along the ditch to where the field edge slopes down slightly, stepping back onto level ground. Tree branches lift and shimmer in the moonlight. It feels as if they have peered into a different dimension. Maybe he had been right and the kitten and the cave were some tokens in an otherworldly game.

  Back at the house, Ned ruffles Ben’s hair and places a steadying hand on his mum’s shoulder. “I’ll ring you in the morning, after I’ve spoken to Major Welding.”

  Marcus

  Marcus minutely adjusts his aching joints in his sleep. Although he doesn’t know it yet, tomorrow is going to be his Big Day.

  Ned

  It is gone ten o’clock by the time he returns home. Parking the van, he checks his mobile to see if Mandy has texted. No text. Where would she think he’d been? Better to play to her assumptions than add fuel to any unwelcome suspicions. He’d tell her that Geoff and Kate had a problem up at the farm. He’d say the wind had blown some metal sheeting off of a barn roof which he needed to make secure.

  He closes the front door quietly after himself. The bright lights in the hall and kitchen are dazzling. Pulling his coat off as he walks into the kitchen, he doesn’t see Mandy straight away. She is sitting at the kitchen table, a bluish light from his laptop reflecting in the lenses of her glasses. “Alright, love?” he asks, hanging his coat on the back of a kitchen chair. Was it a sense of guilt that made him add the term of endearment? Something about the set of her jaw tells him she isn’t exactly alright. “What’s up?”

  Mandy stares at the screen, her arms folded, nodding slowly and repeatedly. “So, that’s her name is it?”

  “What?”

  “Bernadette.”

  “Eh?”

  “Bern-a-bloody-dette.”

  “What you going on about?”

  “There.” She points at the screen. “There, for all the world to see.”

  Ned comes cautiously round the table.


  On the screen, a magnified photograph. His eyes flicker over the scene. It had undoubtedly been taken today at the field clearance. What was there that was causing Mandy so much stress? A wisp of smoke rises into the air from a tangle of cut branches. A pile of coats lies on the floor with a Jack Russell asleep on top. There seems no real focus to the picture, more like one of those busy paintings where the main action takes place in some inconsequential corner, life going on all around, oblivious to the man with melted wings falling out of the sky. There seems to be an impromptu game of cricket going on. Marcus, or whatever his name is, is taking photographs.

  Then he sees it.

  Between the camera that took this shot and Marcus taking his, the three of them, from the back. Marcus is directing them to stand a bit closer. Ben is standing between his Mum and Ned, their fingers tightly interlaced behind the boy.

  12

  Marcus

  A private message awaited Marcus on his laptop along with the early morning market reports and weather forecast for the area of his former home. Would he, please, make his way immediately to the Town Field where Major Welding’s representative wishes to consult with him. On no account is he to mention his mission or destination to anyone.

  Torn between disdain for what is obviously a silly little PR wheeze conjured up by grown men who should know better, and a spirit of adventure buoyed along by a slightly increased heart rate, Marcus now finds himself at the duly appointed spot at the duly appointed time. A crowd of twenty school children fills the lay-by opposite, joshing and chewing and chatting and spitting. He has the suspicion that proximity makes him an automatic paedophile. He turns his back to them, resting his forearms on the rickety old wooden gate, and whistles a tune into the field. A blackbird responds.

  As the yellow school bus draws away, a new-plated Bentley with blacked-out windows and razor-fin radiator glides silently into the vacated space. Marcus flashes back to every spy thriller he has ever watched. Is he going to be kidnapped? Who would possibly pay a ransom? Certainly not Velda. His kids? Not on their wages. He glances over his left shoulder and then over his right. Can he make a getaway? Hail down one of those delivery Johnnies whizzing by?