‘As you may know, our jurisdictions share a border. There’s a marker on the mountain road, so small you might not even notice it if you weren’t looking for it. But it’s there, somewhere around half-way up. It’s not normally needed – not much happens on the road, and if it does we can usually agree which side would handle it.
‘But, maybe three or four years ago we had an RTA up there. Now, I know your line of work, Jake, so I wonder if that’s not what you were hoping to ask Sheriff Thornton about?
‘Anyway, most of the road that hugs the mountain is on our side. After that, it meets the mountain pass that Stove sits within. So, after the crash was called in by a lorry driver, both our forces were in attendance that morning. I saw with my own eyes the barrier that the four-by-four had crashed through, and it was clearly above the marker. But the car had rolled so far down the mountain that, were I a cartographer and had a large-scale map rolled out in front of you, I could tell you that the car was resting on our side.
‘We were set to fight our corner, mount a full investigation – there was no way to say the victims hadn’t died in our town. But it was Lloyd Thornton himself who made the Stove case,
‘“They’re our kids, Al,” he said to me. “I know the car, I know the owner, I knew his son.”
‘And I gave way, because I could see how much it pained him. This was their tragedy, and I gave way.’
‘And strictly speaking,’ asked Jake on the tape, ‘was your giving way... inappropriate?’
The Sheriff of Gaidon answered,
‘No. One of us had to, and it crossed the border.’
‘But it left an aftertaste?’
‘You appreciate, Jake, I’m getting into my own personal feelings now, nothing I could point to in the police record.’
‘I understand.’
‘But as I say, a Sheriff has a nose, and there was something off.’
‘So tell me your impressions, anything, no matter how vague.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what. He looked beat up. Now, the young Lloyd Thornton cut a dashing figure. Jet black hair and sharp jawline, I’ve seen him turn more than one woman’s head. But that town ages people, and he looked awful that day.’
‘Must be the rugged life,’ suggested Jake.
‘Must be,’ agreed the Sheriff, sounding utterly unconvinced. ‘And one of his men had a black eye – the result of a bar-brawl apparently. And another was limping.’
‘When was this again?’ asked Jake.
‘The start of spring. Literally the week the road re-opened.’
In the living room Toby cringed.
‘And I’ll tell you what else – they were all wearing fresh-laundered uniforms. They looked like they’d stepped out of a menswear section of a shopping catalogue – tan slacks, khaki jackets.’
‘Maybe they needed washing after the rigours of winter?’
‘All of them, on the same day? All that mud and slush still around, and I swear there wasn’t a speck on them.’
Jake turned to Toby in the room, ‘Or maybe their tan uniforms needed washing as they’d been hanging up unworn for three months?’
The Sheriff of Gaidon went on,
‘And as we’re on the subject... well, that’s not the only time events have crossed our jurisdiction and we’ve been left with the distinct impression to leave well alone.’
‘I’d be glad to ask you about it.’
‘And I’d be glad to tell. Though I won’t say any more over the telephone, if you don’t mind. Maybe you could visit us?’
‘I’d be glad to.’
‘And Jake?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re not only asking me about a road traffic accident here, are you?’
‘We investigators have a nose too.’
And Toby thought the Sheriff of Gaidon sounded distinctly glad of that, as he signed off on the phone call.
Chapter 29 – Another Tale of Life as Lived in Stove
Jake clattered with the tape deck as he changed cassettes,
‘Fear not, Toby. The show’s not over. Here’s the recording of the interview I had with him in Gaidon when I got to visit on Summer Break. Now, you’re going to want to get comfortable for this one.’
The second recording started with a hiss at the start of the tape, and the clunk of the recording machine being switched on and set up, then the Sheriff of Gaidon asking,
‘You’re recording this?’
Jake on tape answered in that calm but unmistakably serious tone that Toby was beginning to get used to,
‘This is a potentially criminal investigation, Sheriff. This is evidence. Are you all right with that?’
Toby imagined the fear Jake may have felt just then, waiting for the man’s answer. Fear that his journey to the foot of the mountains, even his entire investigation so far, could have been for nothing. But the Sheriff answered,
‘Yes, yes. Of course. Sorry, it’s just that giving “evidence” on fellow lawmen, even those of another district... I don’t like it, Jake. But, as you say, if it could be that important.’
‘It really could. So, Sheriff Lacer, to begin,’ said Jake then with all due authority. ‘I must confess: when we spoke on the telephone I took the liberty of recording our conversation. This was before I knew if you were implicit in the events of the car crash on the mountain road. Since earning your trust however, I’d like your permission to keep the tape as evidence of your recollections of that day.’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Thank you. You agreed to speak today on another cross-border incident?’
Toby sensed the Sheriff wasn’t enjoying this interview; though as the tape rolled on and he told his story, he seemed to relax into it.
‘Yes. It wasn’t a crime as such. It didn’t even warrant more than a couple of lines on our log book – I went to look it up after you’d reminded me of it. But... well, I’ll leave it to you to decide what you think.
‘This was a couple of years before the car crash, five years this past January.’
‘Wintertime again?’ asked Jake on tape.
‘Yes. We received a call from a householder here in Gaidon to tell us they had discovered a boy, no older than fifteen or sixteen, in distress and hiding out in their carport. This was January, a mountain town in January. He was frozen half-to-death and shivering, not even wearing proper clothes...’
(In the room at that moment Jake said to Toby, ‘The Sheriff shivered himself as he told me this bit. I swear he shook.’)
The Sheriff went on,
‘...The caller said the lad was scared, and looked like he’d been crying. He wouldn’t accept food, or shelter inside their house. And when the first of my men approached him he flipped out, screaming, “No police, no police.”
‘Anyway, we stepped back into the house. I’d arrived at the scene by then, with no idea of how to handle it other than to give the kid some space. The householders took him a bowl of soup at least. The boy wouldn’t even tell them who he was, though he wasn’t local – I pride myself on knowing everyone in my town.’
‘I think a lot of people would like to live in a town like that.’
‘Thank you. Now, so far so odd. But you haven’t heard the oddest bit. An hour after we got there, so did the Stove police, fronted by Lloyd Thornton himself. They were waiting at my office, huffing and puffing after getting down the mountain, and asking if we’d seen a Stove boy who’d ran away from home? So old, so tall. He fitted our boy’s description all right. They said he was a shoplifter, who’d run away after nearly getting caught.’
The Sheriff paused on the recording. Toby imagined him shaking his head at the memory. He resumed, quieter and with a note of concern,
‘Now, by then he’d come into the house and been chatting to the householders a little bit. He’d even let us officers into the room, after we promised to leave our sticks and handcuffs in the car. If this lad was a criminal then he was the gentlest soul that ever turned to crime – Lor, I’d s
ay the mother feeding him soup was all fit to adopt him there and then! And if he had been shoplifting, then he’d lost whatever he’d stolen along the way. And it must have been something real big for him to risk a trek down a snowed-in mountain road for it.
‘In the house I got a proper look at him. This was winter, yet the lad had regular sneakers on. At least he had a sheepskin over him, though it was unbuttoned and pulled around himself like a comfort-blanket. And this was worn over just a tee-shirt and... what I could only call pyjama bottoms. The clothes were wet with sweat after struggling through snowbound mountain passes. And he had bruises too, old ones. I saw them when the sheepskin fell open. And don’t tell me they were all caused by his exertions getting down to our town. He could have died out there, Jake, died.
‘To give you a clue of the effort it must have taken him to get to Gaidon, this was a whole month before the road re-opened. The snow up there, even dodging the drifts, can get up to five feet thick in places, left uncleared. He would have been scrambling through it on all fours, sometimes falling in it up to his neck. Imagine the state of mind you’d have to get yourself into to manage such a feat – almost a manic state...’
(Toby could imagine that ‘manic state’, and knew the effort it took to contain that same energy in his own young spikers. He only wished he’d had the presence of mind as a teenager to put his own spiking energy into an escape attempt.)
‘...In all my time as Sheriff I’d not seen one person make the journey from November to February. And now, here were four in one night! Old Lloyd was fit to gasp, and with the whole trek back ahead of him. No wonder he looked aged the next time I saw him.’
‘You didn’t meet again till the car crash?’
‘As I say, we’re often given the sense they don’t want much to do with us. But that night they were there to take the young lad back.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I wasn’t happy with it, and I said so. I as good as told them that there was something up with their story. But to my shame, I let him go... Well, whatever I might feel about it, I won’t doubt a fellow officer staring me right in the eye and asking me to turn over someone he believes to be a criminal. It was another four hours though before I let them take him, not till after he’d rested and had a proper meal, and after we got him some walking clothes.’
‘And how did the Stove officers take the delay?’
‘As well as they wanted to – I didn’t give them a choice. But...’
‘What?’
‘Well, it was odd – I know the kid was technically a criminal, and that he’d led them a merry dance having to chase him down the mountain. But the Stove officers seemed so show no interest in his condition, they took no pleasure in him feeling better. In fact, the more talkative he became the more nervous they seemed.’
‘And how was the boy?’
‘A little better. He’d perked right up after eating and resting.’
‘And how did he take to going back?’
Toby noticed another period of dead air on the recording, before Sheriff Lacer answered,
‘He didn’t like it. I think he tried not to think about it, until he’d finished eating and they took his arm and told him it was time to go.
‘I also told Lloyd... Sheriff Thornton, I should be calling him... I told Sheriff Thornton that I thought the boy had endured enough that night, and that if he had it in his power he should get the charges dropped. He needed his family and his bed when he got back, not a grilling on a minor charge. And to his credit, Thornton agreed. He said to the poor kid, “Everything that happened in town, that’s all forgotten about. We’re just taking you home, son.”’
‘And so it ended with their leaving?’
‘I won’t forget their faces as they went on their way. I don’t think any of them fancied the trip back – the trek down had half killed them. By then the lad was just about warmed up and calmed down. And hell, the look he gave me over his shoulder, as he headed off on his new snow shoes, a Deputy either side of him...
‘I gave in, Jake, even though it felt wrong. And it wasn’t only up to me. It was my duty, I had to do it, and I’ve worried ever since what happened to the kid.’
‘And did the Stove officers tell you the boy’s name, Sheriff?’ asked Jake on tape.
‘Benjamin Drew. I’ll not forget it, Benjamin Drew.’
Chapter 30 – Candour in the Face of Things
Jake clicked off the tape player, to leave the room in silence. Toby looked around, at Jake’s unreadable grin and at the women’s all-too-readable scorn, standing listening at the door. The looks on their faces had not faded all the time he’d been there.
Jake sat silent by the stereo, before asking Toby,
‘“Five years ago this past January.” That would have been the first of the three winters you missed?’
Toby calculated, ‘Yes.’
‘Two years before the Worst Year?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had you heard this story?’
‘No, I hadn’t.’
‘Not even from Job and Fitch?’
‘It must have been Town-side men.’
Jake paused. ‘You’re thinking of something?’
‘It’s just...’
‘What?’
‘Don’t make me say it, Jake.’
‘What, Toby?’
‘Well, when Sheriff Lacer said that the Stove Deputies didn’t care when Benjamin’s condition improved.’
‘Uh uh.’
‘It was only because they knew a teen’s moods could be up and down all winter, that he could be groaning again in an hour and spiking an hour after that. Their job wasn’t to be happy for him feeling better, but to watch for those moods coming back. If he was groaning, then they’d have to carry him over their shoulder all the way back up to town. And if he spiked, then they’d be knocking him unconscious on the road to do the same. They’d have hated having outsiders near a sick kid, and would fear the people of Gaidon seeing how we had to deal with him.’
‘Well, I can’t fault your honesty. Of course, I’ve tried to find Ben Drew, but as you may know he’s left the country.’
Toby didn’t, but Jake went on.
‘So, I don’t know how it helps us. But you can’t deny an anecdote like that adds depth.’
‘When you come to write the story?’
‘When I come to write the story. Tommy Richter needs closure, Toby. His ghost haunts this town. And that of the other boy, who I don’t even have a name for yet – can you believe they consigned him to a pauper’s grave under a false identity? Why do that, Toby? Half the town must have known who he was.’
Toby said quietly, ‘The truth is, we don’t know. At least, I don’t, and I’ve never had anyone tell me.’
Jake let this sink in, before continuing,
‘And there were other leads that led nowhere: such as another car crash nearly twenty years ago, again killing young people. This time occurring in late autumn, and on the road leading coastward. Teens desperate to escape before the snow came? I wondered. But the details weren’t there.’
‘I knew them,’ said Toby. ‘They were a brother and sister, he was above me at school. I can’t remember the names now. They broke the news in school assembly. But it was nothing to do with the Sheriff’s Office, I’m sure.’
‘I believe you. As for the rest, who knows what I’ll find? I’ve hardly broken ground on the research: fifty years of news stories; the records of all deaths recorded in your town; the history of every town official. I searched for people on social media with Stove as their hometown, and found none – are you all so ashamed of where you come from?
‘And then it struck me, something I’d heard as a child, about a town in the hills that was locked away all winter, where the people were stuck together for months in religious rituals.’
Toby shook his head, ‘That’s hooey. It was a rumour to explain why so many of us came back each year. We’re no more religious than any other town
, and those of us who are are only praying for winter to end.’
Jake sighed, and then concluded the first part of their meeting with,
‘Look at how your town is living, Toby.’
Which is what Toby was doing, had been trying not to do all his life.
Chapter 31 – Jake’s Aerie
‘I keep most of my research upstairs.’ Jake rose from the sofa, ‘Come and have a look.’
‘You’d show it me?’
‘Why not? If you gave us away they’d find it anyway.’
Toby couldn’t argue with the logic, and followed Jake up the warmly creaking stairs – was it only his imagination that wood creaked more in cold weather? On the third level, for it was a big house, Toby leant on the wooden bannister of the staircase. It opened out into an open-plan top bedroom that occupied the whole of the loft. Yet this was no gloomy attic, but a bright converted living space, plastered and painted white, and with superior windows facing forward and back.
From a shelf, a pocket radio burbled distant sports scores. Beside the warm-looking bed and busy desk were bags of folders, files, and the red holdall Toby had seen Jake with on the station platform. And at each window, carefully painted so as not to glint in sunlight, were camera apparatus with long lenses.
‘I’ve brought you here to show you how much we have,’ said Jake.
‘We?’ asked Toby.
‘We aren’t many, but enough. And we’re not all in this house either.’ Jake was now perching himself on a camera stool, but giving his visitor his full attention. ‘And there’s nothing here that doesn’t have a copy, even if it’s only stashed out in the woods, where you know you’ll never find it. I need you to know that it’s over, Toby. I need you to leave here with that fact.’
‘I need a minute.’
‘You’ve twenty left of your hour.’
Toby sat on the edge of the bed, surrounded by the proof of his town’s secret. Classified, categorised, growing daily, all awaiting its delivery to the nation’s media. It felt to Toby like so many crates of TNT about to blow the town to smithereens.
He didn’t need a minute, he only had one question,