‘Okay. But I’ve things to do first. I’ll be there when I can.’
Whether this satisfied Sarah, Toby didn’t know, but each returned to their duties.
A short while later, Toby got straight through on the phone line to his landlady. She confirmed that things were fine, and that she’d slept about as much as he had that last twenty-four hours. She concluded that Job and Fitch and the other Deputies had things well under control.
The problems, as Toby had expected, were all Town-side. A cursory glance at Margaret’s new chart showed where the trouble lay, as its author explained,
‘We just don’t have the numbers. Eddy’s been with the same family for eight hours. And I haven’t seen Crawley since last night.’ She read off other names, calling them either on duty or not. Toby recognised the faces in the fracas the previous evening: the one with the gun-shot in his leg; another who’d helped with the carrying of the fallen. The men that were able to were doing sterling work somewhere nearby, no doubt. But Eddy and one or two others were not enough for half of the town.
Toby wondered then what so upstanding a woman as Margaret thought of the Orell incident? Did she even know the details? Had she wanted to know?
But then Toby noticed another name was missing from the list of those available: Tort, the youngest Deputy at that scene, the one who’d cried at the clinic. His name wasn’t even on the board.
Toby asked the question, and Margaret lowered her voice to answer, though they were alone in the room,
‘He tried to... hurt himself last night, after seeing Billy Meting.’
‘Oh God. I made him carry the body with me.’
Margaret neither judged or sympathised, instead explained quietly,
‘He didn’t get very far with it, praise be. His mother bandaged the cuts. She didn’t want the others knowing, so I’ve told them he was just a bit shocked by last night. But he won’t be back this winter.’
‘It sounds like you’ve been rushed off your feet, Margaret.’
‘Oh Sheriff, you don’t know the half of it. I’ve hardly had a chance to mourn poor Billy, before this happening to Tort.’
Toby couldn’t cope with it any more, and looked around for anything to change the subject. He looked again at the busy board,
‘I’d relieve one of the men if I could...’ It was the kind of offer a person makes with the desperate hope of it not being taken up. Margaret answered,
‘Toby, I can see you’re fit to fall down right in front of me. When did you last sleep?’
He couldn’t recall. But he realised with numbers so low, that once rested he’d be doing all jobs. He’d be Sheriff, Deputy, Town-side supervisor. He’d be the entire three tiers of their chain of command. Toby realised he’d have no time for anything else: no late-night testifying at the Emsworths’, no spooky daybreak conversations with the recently returned love of his life. And he knew that if he was going to do anything decisive with regard to the future of the town, then it had to be right then.
And there was also Crawley. What would Toby do if he didn’t show up soon? A part of Toby would have been happy just to imagine he’d somehow disappeared off the face of the earth. Yet Toby also knew that Crawley was a crux of it, and someone he would have to focus on if he expected to achieve any of his goals. He decided that that point was now.
‘Margaret, I need to rest. And my belongings are still at the guest house. Do you think the others could hold on till, say, four this afternoon?’ He picked that hour out of the air.
She nodded yes, but in the way of one going through the motions. As if both knew that it had never been as bad. As if both knew that, whether they held on until that hour or not, with the rate staff numbers were falling then there was no way they would save the ship.
Toby took his hat and left.
Chapter 56 – Night-vision
Mrs Emsworth gave Toby an alarmed look as he staggered through the front door of her home; to which he grumbled,
‘Don’t worry about wishing me to hell, I’m already there. Is he in?’
‘Where else would I be?’ called Jake as he ran down the stairs. ‘You forget I see all from up there. You’re very visible – a crow in the snow. Don’t jibe Mrs E. though. She’s doing a lot for us.’
Toby gave her a look in apology, which she seemed to take.
‘And what are you doing using the front door?’
‘Does any of that matter any more?’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Jake. ‘Though be careful, Tobe. You’re being brusque. Don’t become the uniform and not the man within it.’
‘So would you be if you’d had the night I’ve had.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘It’s all over, Jake,’ said Toby labouring in the chair he’d fallen into.
‘What’s all over, Chief?’
‘I won’t be the Chief any more.’
‘Always will be in this house. But get specific, will you, buddy? What’s over?’
‘I am, after winter season.’
‘Then all the more reason to do something about it now. Come on up.’
Jake paused before they went to the stairs though,
‘I’ve got to say, you did all right last night.’
And Toby took the compliment.
Jake’s motion sensors hadn’t failed him. The view from the window hadn’t been perfect, with rooftops and a telegraph pole interrupting the view. Yet Toby hoped the evidence was still clear enough for any court to convict on. What it showed to him was this:
The film was shot in ghostly night-vision, like nature documentaries where owls’ eyes are white reflective disks. There was a T-junction with the Orell house almost at its head. A small figure burst on to the screen running through the slush and ice as though it wasn’t there, moving like a fox, lightly, lithely. A series of heavier figures then appeared, disordered and clumsy, shown as pitch-black even in the artificially brightened picture format.
One of these dark figures stopped though, turned to halt another, and in a move was lifted in the air by this other’s shoulder and thrown aside like a rag-doll. This other, larger figure continued in his same direction unchecked, as if his halting guardian hadn’t been there. Meanwhile the thrown figure, as he fell, disappeared into the shadows of surrounding buildings.
‘That’s Lloyd Thornton,’ said Toby, as he watched his former mentor left to lie winded in the ice where Toby would later find him.
Jake nodded, ‘He lost his authority before he even hit the ground – he could never be Sheriff again after that.’
Ahead of these shenanigans though, the fox-like creature skipped onward, sure to evade his pursuers. This sprinter seemed carefree, Toby even sensed he was laughing, though it was impossible to tell from the tape. He paused at the T-junction, starting one way, halting again, then bounding off in another.
Meanwhile, in a superhuman burst of energy, his chief chaser, having already brushed aside one hindrance, charged forward. With a sickening inevitability, he snagged his quarry.
‘Stop the tape!’ called Toby.
‘No,’ said Jake. ‘There isn’t long left.’
The fight, as it was, did not last long. Toby had already seen the marks on Billy Meting’s face.
‘A Fox,’ he said in sad admiration. ‘You ran like a fox.’
On the tape, Billy’s attacker stood up. At a waving of this monster’s arm other black shapes came into the frame.
Toby gasped, asking, ‘The Sheriff, Crawley, at least two others – how many of them were on this kid?’
These new arrivals lifted the body – now no longer a fox, just a broken boy – to carry him into the shadows beside the injured Lloyd. The large figure stood alone then, snorting like the raging bull he was. Crawley.
But that was not the end of it...
Away from the centre of the action, a window shutter flew open. The room the window belonged to was fully-lit, so for a moment the tape flooded with white light, like those old movies of atom bombs g
oing off in New Mexico. The brightness-balance of the camera was thrown out, before it righted itself. From this pool of light a silhouette figure came into view waving a long object. This was Orell and his shotgun.
The shooter recoiled. In the street the black bull flinched.
‘He was injured!’ shouted Toby. ‘But how did he keep going?’
‘He was running on adrenaline, I reckon,’ said Jake. ‘He might not even have felt it at the time.’
On the screen the other black shapes gathered beside their new leader to batter their nightsticks across the rafters of Orell’s large white house.
‘We can skip it here,’ said Jake, who pressed the fast-forward. ‘No more shots were fired till you got there.’
As the film sped on, the number of figures increased, as word must have spread around the town and every Town-side Deputy felt the call.
Jake slowed the film again just as Orell leant out of the window and shot another Deputy – the film had no sound, but Toby remembered Orell calling out, ‘That’s winged yer! That’s winged yer!’
‘Look who’s just arrived?’ said Jake.
A new figure appeared. The others ignored him at first, before turning around to answer him, and then following him to where the casualties lay.
‘That’s me,’ recognised Toby.
‘A man apart,’ said Jake with something Toby thought approached admiration.
‘I’ve seen all this,’ said Toby.
‘But don’t stop watching.’
And Toby saw what Jake meant: for as he and the other carriers turned away from the Orell house and moved towards the fallen, Toby for the first time saw Crawley give one last furious look up at Orell, and then leave the scene holding the left side of himself and moving decidedly awkwardly.
‘See, he was feeling it by then.’
Toby thought aloud, ‘But I saw him later at Lloyd Thornton’s bedside. He still didn’t show the slightest sign of being shot.’
‘I bet the first thing he did when he got away from Orell’s was neck half-a-tube of pain-killers.’
Both men sensed that this was serious. Jake was saying,
‘I’ve watched the film through about twenty times now – it looks like Orell hit Crawley in either his arm or his side.’
Toby remembered, ‘He grabbed Lloyd’s bedframe with both hands, and shook it.’
‘Then it’s more likely his side. It was unguarded, as he had his arm raised at the moment he was shot.’
‘But a shotgun blast will kill you!’ said Toby, who had never fired one or been hit by one.
Jake explained, ‘The thing with shotguns is you can aim wildly and still catch your target with half-a-dozen pellets. If it’s his side it could be dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘I guess that even a glancing blow might hurt like being punched with an iron fist, and afterwards ache like broken ribs. But if a couple of lucky pellets have made their way deep enough, then he could be bleeding internally. Left untreated, he’s on his way out.’
Then Toby said something shameful,
‘Then can’t I wait a day or two until he turns up in a ditch?’
To which Jake gave a wry smile,
‘You’ve seen the films from India, where they have to shoot those crazed elephants on heat? Or a tiger, when it gets a taste for human blood?’
Toby nodded. He had seen the films. Jake asked further,
‘How did Crawley seem at the bedside?’
‘Like a man possessed.’
‘Then he’s already half-way there. You can’t leave that creature on the loose.’
Jake clicked off the machine, and the pair trudged back down the stairs.
At that point Sarah came in and joined them as they went into the kitchen.
‘How did you know I was here?’ asked Toby.
‘I didn’t. I’ve been popping in all morning with updates.’
‘Which are?’ asked Jake.
‘Nothing.’ She nodded at Toby, ‘You’re resting, Crawley’s missing. There are notes come in from half-a-dozen families unresponded to.’
‘Margaret isn’t missing you?’ asked Toby.
‘There’re no Deputies left to manage.’
Toby mused, ‘The town’s spiralling. There aren’t enough of us to cope. And then the spiking children will have no one to contain them. Who knows the damage they could do themselves. Just like the Sippitz boy, when I lost my footing.’
‘So what’s happening here?’ asked Sarah?
Jake answered, ‘He’s taking Crawley in for killing Billy Meting.’
‘You brave idiot,’ said Sarah
‘This is the big one,’ said Jake. ‘He’s ending it early.’
‘Quite right too,’ she said, ‘the way things are going.’
And Toby knew that was the case.
Chapter 57 – The Trail
Toby had calls to make. Every journey took forever through the melting midday snow.
Firstly, to the clinic, where an exhausted Doc Lassiter confirmed that Crawley hadn’t been to see him. Nor had anyone else been in asking about shotgun injuries.
‘If this is about the Deputy’s leg from last night,’ said the Doctor, ‘he’s fine – we got the pellets out.’
‘It isn’t, but thanks.’
‘Then what is it about?’
‘I’ll tell you later, if I have the chance.’
Next was the Mayor – who must have been sick of the sight of Toby by then, but who told him,
‘Crawley did look like he’d been in the wars when he came to see me last night. But then you fellows are always carrying injuries, aren’t you? He might have been holding his side, I don’t remember. Where is he, Toby?’
‘I intend to find out.’
Toby had felt like interrogating the Mayor then, asking if he knew that it had been his favourite Deputy who had beat young Billy Meting in the street? And what did he think about that? But Toby didn’t, for what was the point? Of course he damn-well knew, the whole town knew, and the whole town did nothing. Just as Toby had known, had always known, that Crawley was the Minotaur in his maze.
Toby had about as much control over his direction as a canoe caught in the rapids; or a single grain of wheat amid a hundred-thousand spiralling down through their hopper into the awaiting sacks.
So what was driving him? What was the plan? How many steps ahead was he thinking? He couldn’t see the future that clearly. He couldn’t see himself at all. Maybe it was no less than his mind and body going into revolt, putting up with things no more? But the person who has lived with a tricky situation for years, and borne it well will tell you that such line-in-the-sand, this-far-and-no-further moments are few and far between.
Jake might have said that it was just an inner realisation in Toby, triggered by the Emsworth house sessions and at last being able to share his life experiences in an almost-counselling environment.
In the end though, Toby moved so quickly into danger because letting this current situation continue to its logical conclusion was like hearing those stories of soldiers dying on the last day of the First World War.
Toby knew he had to concentrate on his mission. Yet he didn’t focus on it directly. All he could think of was Jake’s film, and how joyful the fox-boy had seemed, bounding down the street.
For Toby had seen something new here: a spiker happy, allowed to run off his excess energies and loving every minute of it.
He talked to himself as he walked,
‘We’ve done it wrong, every single time. They needed space to run, not to be contained. They’d have tired themselves out. We needn’t ever have raised our clubs.
‘But that will all be in the past,’ he concluded. ‘That will all be in the past.’ And Toby knew that soon there would be no more spikers, no more clubbings.
Crawley was proving difficult to find, yet there were still the most obvious places. Toby could have asked Margaret where Crawley was lodging that winter. But he felt it better not
to tell her where he was going, for she would guess how such a meeting might end up.
Instead he worked off an old memory.
‘Buddy Bob’s Hardware and Animal Supplies,’ read the sign.
Toby found the store on main street.
‘Hi Bob,’ he called to the man behind by the till, who limped around the counter to come onto the shopfloor itself.
‘Hi Sheriff. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Too bad though that Lloyd Thornton got injured.’
‘It is.’
‘What can I do you for, Tobe?’
‘Crawley’s roomed with you in the past, hasn’t he? I wondered if he was at your place this winter? I need to talk with him.’
‘Oh, anything important?’
‘No, just Sheriff’s stuff.’
Toby tried to say this as casually as possible – he knew Bob was Crawley’s friend from school. He’d Deputised himself in his time, before a leg injury put him out of the game. It also gave him a crooked stance that seemed to age him several decades. Although Town-side and a pal of Crawley’s, Bob had had no ill will with Toby. They’d been colleagues and had helped each other though several scrapes, including once a mother threatening Toby with a saucepan if he ‘Comes anywhere near my boy.’ They would have laughed about it any other time.
The man shuffled over to straighten some saw-blades that had become disorganised on their display rails, saying,
‘No, I haven’t seen much of him this year. Though I made him the offer of my fold-out sofa. Have you tried Martha’s?’
‘Who’s Martha?’
‘You remember her? Blonde girl, used to barmaid at The Peaks?’
Toby did remember – and so undoubtedly would half the men in Stove.
‘She’s out over on Townshend,’ added Bob.
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem. Oh Toby, before you go...’
Again Toby saw that look in someone’s eye, the look of asking things they weren’t supposed to be asking,
‘Is this about the trouble last night? I mean, I know what he’s like. I know he can get rough sometimes...’
Toby silenced Bob with a hand on the shoulder,
‘I just need to ask about the roster.’
‘Well, I hope you find him.’
‘I do too.’
Though Toby knew that Bob was not convinced.