Chapter 20
TWENTY
On Saturday, the day of the shoot, it rained again.
Will appeared, looking like some bizarre countryside app had Photoshopped him into a mini-squire – flat cap, check breeches, waxed jacket: his shooting gear, all cast-offs from The Old Tennis Court.
A little later, she heard vehicles. Two Land Rovers pulled up and disgorged a dozen or so people dressed similarly to Will, some with dogs.
Kate recognised Gordon and a couple of others.
They greeted her politely but quietly, then went round the side of the house into the garden, Will eagerly tagging along.
At the bottom, they silently spread out in a line – almost like a police search party, Kate thought. They seemed to be waiting for a signal. Some put whistles in their mouths.
A voice – it sounded like Gordon’s – gave a shout, and the line erupted into noise: yelling, whistling, bashing the bushes in front of them with sticks.
The dogs, immediately excited, began barking.
Already, alarmed pheasants were clattering into the air.
The line of people moved forward, hollering and yelping.
Ahead of them, out of sight beyond the trees, the guns started up, the barrage of bangs adding to the din.
For a moment she thought, What have I done?
I’ve literally sent my son into the line of fire.
But then she told herself not to be so fearful – if people got injured doing this, it wouldn’t be allowed, and, in any case, the pheasants were flying upwards, over the trees, well above the beaters’ heads.
After about twenty minutes, the woods fell silent again. Two beaters returned, hurrying up the garden.
She intercepted them. ‘Where’s Will?’
‘Park Farm,’ one of them said, gesturing vaguely. ‘There’ll be two more drives, then the shoot tea. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure he gets a lift home.’ With that, they climbed into the Land Rovers, clearly impatient to rendezvous with the others.
Will didn’t get back until after six. His face was covered in mud, and he was exhausted but exhilarated. ‘That was the best day ever. Andy from my class at school was there too. He’s getting a shotgun for his birthday. How cool is that?’
‘I doubt you can get a shotgun licence at twelve,’ Matt said. ‘Maybe Andy’s exaggerating?’
‘He said there’s no minimum age. And his dad’s one of the guns, so I think he’d know,’ Will said scornfully.
Matt pulled out his phone and did a quick search. ‘Blimey. Looks like Andy’s right. But I’m afraid there’s no way you’re getting a shotgun for your birthday.’
To change the subject, Kate said, ‘How did you get mud on your face?’
‘It’s not mud,’ Will said. ‘They blooded me, because it was my first. It was brilliant.’
There was a strange postscript to the shoot. On Monday, Kate was painting a bedroom when she heard a vehicle pull up outside. She put down her brush and went to see who it was. But, when she opened the front door, a Land Rover was already speeding off.
The door felt unusually heavy. She pulled it all the way open, then jumped back with a cry of disgust. Someone had hung two dead pheasants on it – they were tied together at the neck with a piece of baler twine, looped over the door knocker, so the necks hung limply to each side.
You could see where one of the birds had been shot – its elaborate feathers were matted with blood.
The other appeared to be unscathed, its dappled plumage startlingly beautiful, its neck the same iridescent blue as a peacock’s.
Their long tail feathers almost touched the ground.
Her first thought was that it must be some kind of protest, that animal-rights activists had targeted them for allowing beaters through their garden.
But she was sure the vehicle she’d just seen was one that had parked there on Saturday.
So was it more personal than that? Had she and Matt offended someone, and this was the rural equivalent of waking up with a horse’s head in your bed?
Could it even be connected to ignoring Paul and Rosemary’s offer?
She pushed the door shut, feeling the heavy clunk of the carcasses swinging against it as she did so.
Should she call the police? Use the village Facebook page to warn her neighbours?
Rosemary might know what to do, but she was still feeling a bit reticent about Rosemary.
She pulled out her phone and messaged Liv: Do you have a minute?
Something weird was just left on my door.
She hesitated, then went outside and added a picture of the dead birds, leaving their heads and most of their bodies out of the picture because they were just too gruesome.
Liv called her back almost immediately. ‘Did you do the shoot a favour?’
‘Well – some of them walked through the garden. And Will helped with the beating.’ At the thought of someone targeting her son, her stomach churned.
‘The gamekeeper’s left you a brace as a thank-you,’ Liv said calmly. ‘He’ll have loads of them to deliver, which is why he won’t have stopped to chat.’
‘You mean, to eat?’ Kate said slowly, realisation dawning.
‘Exactly. You should hang them for a week or so, until the flesh starts to get a bit whiffy. You’ll need to gut them and pluck them, of course, but you do that after you hang them, not before. Leave them outside, somewhere the foxes can’t get them, like over a beam.’
‘Oh my God,’ Kate said, relieved. ‘I thought it was something awful. I was about to post a warning on the village Facebook page.’
Liv hooted with laughter. ‘Just as well you called me first. You’d never have lived that down.’
Kate didn’t want to look at the dead birds, let alone move them.
But she definitely couldn’t leave them for Will or, more pertinently, Tilly to find on their return from school.
Going outside, she hooked a finger gingerly through the loop of twine and carried them over to the barn.
They were surprisingly heavy, the fat bodies bumping against each other with each stride, the twine tight against her finger, the sharp beaks occasionally pecking her ribs.
The heads were hanging limply like that because their necks had been wrung, she realised with a shudder.
Welcome to the countryside. She threw the pheasants over a beam and left them, quite literally, to rot.