Toby heard this love-in for Crawley, and asked in his head, ‘So what’s the real reason why you didn’t give him the damn job?’ But he didn’t ask, for he also sensed a sadness in the Mayor’s voice, who went on to lament,
‘Crawley though is still perhaps a little young, a little... untamed at times. Having you there to check him seems the compromise solution. I won’t deny, we were let down by your three years away. Though the fact that you came back, and keep doing so, has repaid much of that. Perhaps you had to get away to understand the duty you were feeling.
‘Now though, a death in the town brings its own pressures – not nipped in the bud it can lead to panic, overreactions, further regrettable acts. A swift return to calmness is the order of the day. So you see, your duty as Sheriff is rather graver than I feared. We’re going to be hoping for a heck of a lot from you, Toby.’
Chapter 52 – Under the Overhang
Toby left the Mayor’s room knowing that his town was going to hell in a handcart, with Crawley at its head. It may not happen that winter, maybe not the next, but someday. (That was if Jake wasn’t taking them there sooner.) And the secret would burn itself out in fury, Toby knew. There was no way that it could end without violence – how much there might be scared him.
The excitement of the scene outside the Orell house had long died down, and the town was now catching up on much-needed sleep. On a quiet, dark street unseen by anyone, Toby found what looked to be a dry patch of ground beneath an overhang, and sat down on the dirt.
The wood creaked as he leaned his back against the building, but Stove was a town of creaks and groans, and no one stirred. He tried to think clearly, knowing he was getting close to suffering chest pains with the stress of it all. He tried to work it out:
How would the town handle things that spring when Sheriff Toby left? The Mayor would have to keep Lloyd Thornton on as figurehead, give trainee Tort more to do. Yet even on a fast-track for the summer, Tort wouldn’t be running things next winter. No, in Toby’s absence then Crawley would be back in the fall to boss the winter scene.
All thoughts of Toby’s retirement ‘on medical grounds’ were now gone. Toby accepted this. As long as he was there then he could act as Crawley’s ‘check’ – the moment he stopped returning then there would be bloodshed, even worse than the death of Billy Meting. The thought shocked him, but he knew it to be true.
And another phrase the Mayor has used lingered. Under the overhang, Toby whispered,
‘Kindness is false kindness, mercy is false mercy.’
So Thornton’s dictum taught to Toby had been taught to him by Mercer. And taught to Mercer by older Sheriffs no doubt, maybe going all the way back to those first Councils attended by Vernon Monroe. And now here was Crawley, still ‘young’ and ‘untamed’, but full of old-school beating zeal to gladden the Mayor’s heart.
And what of Crawley now? The man who Toby had stopped from killing Orell. The man who was presently Absent Without Leave. The man who wanted Toby’s job. Toby wondered if a challenge was inevitable, and when it might come?
It was still the small hours, and Toby had the rest of the night to get through.
Chapter 53 – Janey
Toby had no memory of rising from the dry patch of ground, or of the walk back to the empty unlocked Sheriff’s Office. He soon learnt though that he had needed his time-out on the dark street, for otherwise he would have gone straight from one interview and into another. Waiting there was Janey.
Twice in one winter – he felt blessed.
She looked drawn. She was still the best looker in the town though.
Over the years Toby had kept his (very) distant tabs on her, and knew the outline of her life, which seemed unchanging. In his sentimental moments, Toby allowed himself to fantasise that the reason she was still single was that she held a candle for him... There were actual reasons: the long hours of a House Mistress year-round, the lack of a man within a hundred miles worthy of her (in Toby’s opinion). Not that she’d have been haughty had any made an advance. And Toby had no idea if any had – even though the thought of it terrified him.
There was also something in her nature that might deter a less-thoughtful man: the way the sickness and her duties told on her, bringing out a kind of reserve. A partner would have to empathise with this.
They’d started out as playground sweethearts – a pop-song cliché, but for them true. They’d known it there and then, and had each felt they would never love another.
Once being taught all he could in Stove though, he began to go away each spring. She understood, she really did, for there were things he had to leave to find.
It made things difficult though. Even trying their best to visit had barely been enough. They would meet in Gaidon, go on holidays, but could never move on.
They had each had their hopes: his that he could prise her away to join him; hers that he would settle back in town one day; each that the Stovian nightmare that embroiled them would somehow go away. Yet in their twenties these opposing forces only seemed to strengthen, resulting in his need to leave for good.
It was now seven years since Toby had told her he would not be back the next winter. It had left them three whole years apart, and four winters since then barely meeting, with neither sure who had hurt who. With the sickness and Stove unchanging, there hardly seemed a point to getting in touch. It was as if they knew it would only hurt them, and that nothing good could result.
Now each winter since Toby’s return, like a slow car crash, he watched Janey moving into Old Maidhood. If there was one thing he could do to stop it, he would. But there seemed nothing. Some hurts go on and on, made all the worse by knowing that if only a resolution had been found then it might have saved them years. And then one day it would be too late to change, and what would that leave him but regret to fill his dying years?
Stove. She wouldn’t leave, he couldn’t stay. The sickness hurt them each as deeply as it did the children. It aged all of them, it lowered life-expectancy, it broke their hearts.
Janey sat in the visitor’s chair at the Sheriff’s desk. Toby didn’t know what else to do, so took up his new position at the other side of it.
‘Congratulations,’ she said. This wasn’t sarcasm, but a stab at sincerity, bleak hopeless sincerity.
‘Thank you.’
‘And thank you for sending us the urgent message.’
‘I wanted you to know.’
‘I guessed.’
‘And I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’ she asked.
‘For hitting the girl the other day.’
‘Don’t be. She was wild, you couldn’t have controlled her.’
‘I should have found a way.’
‘Toby, she’d already nearly killed another girl two days before. That was why we had her bound, but she just wouldn’t calm down. I was relieved when she fled, because it meant we wouldn’t have to hold her any longer. Can you imagine how that makes me feel?’
‘We’re not coping any more, are we?’
Janey looked down, before announcing, ‘Mrs Winters is retiring. She wants me to be Head Mistress.’
‘And me already Sheriff.’
‘They were always going to start giving us these jobs at some point,’ she reasoned.
‘But can we fill them?’
‘Can anyone now? If this is now, what will next year be like?’
‘A boy died this evening,’ said Toby.
‘I heard. It’s so sad.’
‘I helped carry him to the Doctor. I’ve never touched a body before, only seen one once, when I was eighteen.’
‘I remember.’
‘He’d hung himself.’
‘Toby. You don’t have to go there.’
He smiled at her, as if to say, ‘Yes I do.’ He continued,
‘This year I’ve nearly killed two children. I was a hair’s breadth away with each of them.’
‘But you never have.’
‘Others have.’
/>
She knew where he was heading, and so pre-empted him,
‘The Worst Year?’
‘The Worst Year.’
‘That was others, Toby.’
‘I know. And I feel as guilty as if it had been me.’
She understood his feelings,
‘Because you weren’t there?’
‘The Mayor said it tonight. I’m the “check” on others’ excesses.’
‘Toby, how old were you those years you didn’t return? Was it your job to be there to manage all of those men?’
‘We can’t escape our responsibilities.’ He was shaking, almost crying.
‘You needed time away. It isn’t your fault that you weren’t there to stop them.’
‘The Worst Year,’ he muttered.
‘You were following your conscience. For you to have stayed would have been as dishonest to yourself as for me to have left. I understand that now.’
He looked up. She was almost smiling. Was this an olive branch?
He asked her rhetorically,
‘Stove, the sickness. Do we want this? Should we want it? You remember when we were young and we said we’d be the ones to end it, somehow, anyhow?’
‘But every generation since the Sixties has wanted that.’
He lamented, ‘Our kids are crazy, and the world can never know.’
‘But maybe this world is not the old world?’
Toby jumped at Janey’s words being so close to Vernon Monroe’s. He wondered how many others in the town were thinking this, and didn’t dare tell another person? A new wave of sadness hit him as he said,
‘The longer you keep a secret, the worse it gets. No matter our intentions, there are deaths now. Someone was responsible each time. To break the secret is to damn those people.’
She looked to her feet, before saying, ‘Well, perhaps that’s just their lookout?’
‘Eh?’
‘Perhaps we just need to break it? Switch on the Internet signal and tell it to the world?’
Toby jolted again, remembering Jake in hiding...
When Toby told Janey what he told her next, he knew that it could end their friendship, his career, even his life if she repeated his words to the town. He was under no illusion when he said,
‘You speak of breaking the secret? What if I told you that there’s already somebody in town planning to do just that?’
‘What? Who?’
‘An investigator. I only met him recently. Or rather, I’ve known him a while, at work in Carvel, but didn’t know what he was.’
‘He got it from you?’
‘No.’
‘He tricked you?’
‘Give me a break.’
‘Sorry. It’s just...’
‘I know, it’s confusing. But no. He had it already, all of it, though I didn’t know it till this winter.’
‘He’s here?’
Toby nodded.
‘You’re hiding him?’
‘I’m not rushing to blow his cover, if that’s what you mean.’
‘And what’s he going to do?’
‘What I said – he’s going to run the story.’
She exhaled, ‘It’s a relief, isn’t it? Despite everything?’
He exhaled too, in joy that she shared his innermost feelings. He said,
‘I only feel ashamed that it took an outsider, that I didn’t have the courage.’
She said softly, ‘Maybe we’d have managed it together?’
There was no accusation in her voice, no criticism. Only regret.
He reached out and took her hand, saying,
‘I want to die. I’m so ashamed, I want to die.’
She instantly came around the desk to kneel beside him in her long rustling skirts. He bowed his head and fell into her arms.
She whispered to him,
‘Then we need to do this now, Toby. Before another child is harmed.’
‘And the blame?’
‘Then we take our share.’
‘And those who don’t want exposure? Who’ve hurt, or killed?’
He wasn’t asking her so much as sharing the questions. She knew this as she answered,
‘We might just have to face them.’ She lifted his head and kissed his cheek. At that moment the bell above the door rang and three Mountain-side Deputies, led by Job, clattered in.
‘Oh. Sorry to interrupt, sir.’ Job had been bearing a look as doomy as Toby had seen on him, yet he smiled momentarily as he said this.
Janey let go and withdrew, as Toby asserted himself.
‘What’s with the “sir”, Job?’
‘Your promotion. We’ve just heard.’
‘Well, it won’t change anything among us.’
‘And is it true a boy died in town?’
Toby nodded.
They paused a moment to absorb this.
‘I have to get back,’ said Janey.
‘Don’t let us interrupt,’ offered Job politely – Toby taught his men to be gracious, even in their line of work.
‘I only slipped out for an hour. I’ll be needed back for breakfast.’
‘Breakfast.’ Toby looked out of the window – the first rays of the sun were emerging, the day was being born. He had survived the night, with Janey’s help.
She offered Toby the wannest of smiles as she left.
‘Goodnight, Miss,’ said Job as she slipped away.
Chapter 54 – Job
But they were soon back to business,
‘Tobe, we came here earlier looking for you.’
‘I was with the Mayor.’
‘And they’re searching all over for Crawley.’
‘It’s been a busy night,’ Toby told them.
‘It’s the same Mountain-side. We’ve only just gotten away.’
The other two Deputies were waiting by the door, as Toby whispered to himself,
‘I should have stopped this. I’ve left it too late.’ His heart sank for Billy Meting as it did for the boy’s family – all would be destroyed.
Job had overheard him,
‘I heard you did more than most, boss.’
Toby hoped that that was true,
‘Anyway Job, we need to rearrange things on our side – you and Fitch are in charge.’
Toby rose to show them out. The sky was lightening and the work of another day would soon begin. As the men gathered themselves to leave though, Job turned to his Sheriff, saying,
‘Boss. You and Janey – it’s good to see you two back together.’
‘Yes it is,’ said Toby, only just realising that that was what had happened.
And Job did mean it, in the way that any good news was welcome in a sad season. If the town’s coolest, ruined couple could find a way back to each other, then almost anything felt possible. Even ending their nightmare.
And maybe it was just the awful death his colleague had just learnt of, but Toby wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen Job quite like that before – serious, reflective, even haunted. And Job had picked his Sheriff to show that face to. What was it about Toby that year? He seemed to be the lighting-rod for everyone’s confessions. Did they sense his own desire to end it? Or did holding his own secrets make him sympathetic by default to those of others?
As Toby watched them from the door, he saw the light of morning pour over the rooftops. The mist had gone – it would be one of those scorching winter days where he’d be sweating underneath his thick jacket. Spring was coming then, but not yet strongly enough to melt the ice, only to form a glassy surface over the settled snow and make every sidewalk treacherous when the slush froze again that night.
Toby also saw Margaret his secretary arriving for work, mere hours after being dismissed.
‘Oh Toby. A terrible business, a terrible business,’ she was saying. On the corner of main street he saw the grocers opening their door and raising the awnings. Also the news vendor, who was restricted to selling sweets and cigarettes when no papers were being brought into town.
The night was over, normality was returning. Toby had sat out those dark hours without challenge. Would the day prove as easy? He felt unable to leave his throne for fear of losing it, and yet leave it he must.
Chapter 55 – Administration
With Job briefed, Toby remembered that his ‘first thoughts’ were always to the Mayor. Now that Margaret was back to watch the store, Toby tailed away from the Sheriff’s Office to find his boss and break the latest happy developments – or lack of – in Stovian civic life.
‘Toby!’ called the Mayor from his leather chair as his still-green Sheriff arrived.
‘Sir.’
Toby proceeded to tell how nothing awful had happened since the previous evening; which in Stove at winter was as good as it got. The Mayor took the update in much the same way Toby had hoped, which was calmly and not requiring him to stay there for very long.
‘I’m glad things have calmed down,’ was the Mayor’s response. ‘I have the Metings’ address, I’ll speak to the family.’ He concluded asking, ‘And what of Crawley? What does Crawley think?’
Which prompted Toby to reply, ‘Sir, no one’s seen him since the scene at Lloyd Thornton’s bedside.’
Leaving the Mayor’s office, Toby’s feet tried to point themselves toward the Emsworth house. Yet that felt juvenile now, like going to see an old school-friend after work when you had a young family waiting. And so he went back to the Sheriff’s Office – at least he had the short walk to warm himself in the sun.
He intended to place a phone-call later to the guest house to check his people had things going well Mountain-side. Firstly though he needed to track down a local Deputy and learn how things went in the town, the day-to-day routines.
Waiting for Toby at the Sheriff’s Office though was Sarah, helping Margaret with the staff rosters as requested. Toby had hardly gotten through the door before her eyes led him away from the staff room and towards the corridor by the drinks machine. He took her cue. A moment later she followed after him there, saying,
‘He’s got something for you. You’ll want to go and see it.’
She was referring to Jake, running thing from his secret viewing post. Then Toby remembered,
‘Lor, he can see the Orell house from up there.’
‘Last night’s assault, he’s got the lot of it. I swear, you’ll want to see it.’