DARK COUNTY Read online

  ‘Like I say to anyone who’ll listen…’ he started to say.

  ‘Never work with the Garrety brothers,’ I finished. ‘They get the biggest jobs, though, plus I owed them a favour.’

  ‘Yeah well, it’s done now. Jimmy’s dead and Phil’s in prison for life,’ the professor said.

  ‘Yeah, I saw it in the paper. I knew they fell out over the money, but killing your own brother, what kind of psycho does that?’

  ‘A Garrety,’ the professor said. ‘Their old man was just the same.’

  We talked a little. I told him I was living in the country, not wanting to put him in the position of knowing too much about my whereabouts.

  ‘So to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?’ he said. ‘I doubt you just phoned because you missed me did you?’

  ‘I need a try out code,’ I said. ‘For a Dottling 1940’s free stander.’

  ‘I thought you’d gone straight,’ he said chuckling to himself.’

  ‘I’m going straight,’ I said. ‘This is the last job for me. It’s one I can’t refuse.’

  ‘Well, have you got a model number?’ He said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a 126,’ I replied.

  ‘Bloody hell, make my life easy why don’t you?’ he said. ‘There were about ten variations of that model in the 40’s, each with its own try-out combination. You got a serial number?’

  ‘No,’ I said, kicking myself for not looking for it, though I knew they were usually underneath, which would have made it difficult to get to.

  ‘Tell me more about it, what dial’s it got?’ The professor asked.

  ‘Standard,’ I said.

  ‘Was there any decoration on the outside of it? Some of their safes are like works of art.’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It was just metal, rusty greenish grey metal.’

  ‘Ah,’ the professor said. ‘Sounds like it was a military safe.’

  He explained that he thought he might have the try-out combination for the safe, he would check and I should call him back in a few hours.

  A slight breeze came across the field. It’s caress was soothing on my sunbaked skin. It had picked up the faint aroma of spring flowers on its travels, the scent was sweet relief from the smell of my own sweat and the crow shit on my shoulder.

  The crows now seemed to sit around me, their cold black eyes regarding me with sideways glances. Could they sense how near the end I was? They cawed at each other as if in some great discussion over my fate.

  I was reminded of some old wives tale I had heard years before, one that had been lurking in the back of my mind. It was about how crows were able to travel between the worlds of the living and the dead, and that they were responsible for transporting the souls from this world to the next. That was why they were here, as I waited to die, they waited to carry me to the next world. What lay in store for me there? I was a career criminal. I had spent my life stealing. If the Ten Commandments were true then surely I was destined for hell. Yet as the refreshing breeze subsided, and the sun continued to beat down on my battered, aching body, I was convinced I was already in hell. What came next had to be better.

  The week after I had entered Harper’s house for the first time, I sat in my car waiting for him to leave once more. On the passenger seat next to me sat my duffle bag, containing all of the tools I might feasibly need. I had a lock pick, just in case Harper had thought to lock his door today. I had my stethoscope, in case I had to try to manipulate the lock. I would be able to do it without but the stethoscope, but it would make life easier. I even had a drill and small amount of explosive. On the off chance that manipulation failed I would use these to blow the lock. Explosives were my least favourite way to work, though, there was no real artistry to it, any idiot could do it with a bit of practice. No, the real skill lay in lock manipulation. With this, you used your ears to listen for the distinctive clicks that told you which numbers made up the combination. This was what you would see in films, the safe cracker with his ear pressed to the safe turning the dial, then opening the safe. Of course, reality was much more complicated. You had to graph the point of convergence, where the clicks interlinked. This would show you which number made up the combination, but not the order, so you would have to try all of the different possible orders. With a simple three-digit combination, there were six possible combinations to try.

  When I called the professor back, he gave me the good news, that most of that model of Dottling safe were only three number combinations, and that he also had the try-out combination, 6-82-12. If old man Harper had never bothered to change the combination, this was the only thing I would need.

  I was anxious to get in and get started; it was always the same before a job. I wished I had a cigarette to smoke, that was always how I use to handle the pre match nerves as it were; however, I had quit just after I left London. So instead, I tapped nervously on the steering wheel, watching the clock. For the first time since I had been observing his habits, Harper was running late. It made me uneasy. I was a strong believer that if something felt wrong about a job you should just walk away, but how could I walk away from the potential life changing treasure in that safe? I couldn’t, I had become obsessed with the idea of getting into the safe. Even if Mickey’s story about the gold was utter shit, I still had to know what someone like Harper would keep in a safe.

  Finally, ten minutes behind schedule, I saw Harper pulling out of the driveway in his dirt splattered Land Rover. He didn’t seem to even glance in my direction, this was comforting as I had been worried that he would spot the car and become suspicious. Instead, he turned left and headed towards the village. As the Land Rover disappeared around the first, tree lined bend I started the engine and slowly drove up the road towards the entrance to Harper’s farm.

  I looked around for sign of any other vehicle, there were none around, so I headed up the driveway and pulled up outside the house. My heart was thumping in my chest as I got out of the car, and my palms were sweating inside my leather gloves. I was dressed all in black, with long sleeves, gloves and a beanie hat. The unseasonably hot weather had already begun, and a little sweat ran from under the hat and down into my eye. It stung like hell. I took off the beanie and wiped my eyes with it.

  I took the duffle bag from the passenger seat and headed to the front door. As I had hoped, Harper had left it unlocked once more. I quickly headed to the study; time was, after all, of the essence. There it stood at the back of the room, swathed in shadows, my opponent, the safe. I rushed over and set the bag down at the side of the safe, I rubbed my hand over it. I don’t know why I always did this. I just needed to feel its strength before I tried to crack a safe.

  I pulled out the scrap of paper on which I had scrawled the try-out combination the professor had given me. I felt the dial. There was a stiffness to it that was unusual, this was often a sign that the safe had not been opened in some time, also it made manipulation more difficult. The stiffness of the dial caused its own creaks and clicks, these made the clicks of the wheels parking, difficult to discern.

  I slowly turned the wheel, entering each digit of the try-out combination 6, then 82 and finally 12. I heard the most satisfying click a safe cracker can ever hear, the sound of the fence dropping into the grooves on the wheels and unblocking the locking pin. The combination had worked. Thank God for people too lazy to bother with changing a safe’s combination. I went to open the heavy door of the safe.

  I think the heat and dehydration were really starting to get to me. The heat beating down on me was finally driving me mad. I heard the crows cawing still, but I also heard words within the sounds. Words like thief, crook and bastard. The crows were judging me, those dead black eyes regarding me with the disdain of a jury convinced of my guilt. I wanted to scream, but of course I couldn’t. I was only capable of the quietest mumble, thanks to Harper. One of the crows flew onto my shoulder. It cawed loudly, and then began to peck at my earlobe, it’s powerful beak clamping down and easily breaking the skin. I did
not mind, the pain was a distraction from the heat, and a reminder that I was still alive.

  From the position of the sun, and the change in the tones of colour in the field, I guessed that it was about mid afternoon. I felt like my throat would crack open from thirst, it had been so long since my last ration of filthy water, but evening was coming and Harper would return soon.

  Mickey Welby was a lying son of a bitch. I had pulled the heavy, and somewhat seized up, safe door open. I was not greeted by the sight of an impossible mountain of gold. Instead, there were dusty manila folders, some old photograph albums, and a single ingot of gold bullion. That was enough, though, at today’s high gold prices that would be worth somewhere between four hundred grand and half a million. Admittedly I wouldn’t be able to set myself up for life, but it would make life more comfortable.

  I picked up the ingot and examined it. I almost dropped it when I saw the markings on the top. There, as clear as day, was a Swastika. This was Nazi gold. The historical significance could be worth a lot more to the right collector than the gold value. I tucked the Ingot into the duffle bag and flicked through the folders. Most of them were to do with the finances of the farm, which seemed to be quite successful. This came as a bit of a surprise as no one in the village even knew what exactly Harper grew up here, one rumour was that he was actually farming cannabis. The more boring reality was wheat mainly. Harper only hired in labourers from outside the area, and only at harvest time. It appeared he did everything else on the farm himself.

  I continued flicking through the folders and found some papers that were written in what looked like German to me. This answered the question of old man Harper’s country of origin.

  Finally, I looked through the photograph album. There were a few old snaps of old man Harper and his bride on their wedding day, a few shots of them with the current Mr Harper as a baby, and he was surprisingly cute as a child. Growing up had not been kind to him.

  After the few family shots and some holiday photos there was a gap in the album, but when I skipped a few pages I saw a photograph that sent a chill through me. It was clearly old man Harper in the picture, though in it he was far from old. He was a young, athletic, handsome man, who just happened to be wearing an SS officer’s uniform.

  The photograph explained the Nazi gold ingot and why Harper would change his name and lose his accent as quickly as possible. He was hiding.

  All at once, I felt uneasy in the house, I couldn’t explain the sensation, it just felt like I was invading in issues far bigger than myself. I put the album back in the safe and locked it back up. I zipped up my duffle bag and turned to leave the room.

  Stood there blocking my path was the hulking frame of Harper. He looked at me with that same smile he had on his face the day he nearly ran me over. Too late, I noticed the lead pipe in his hand. He swung it at the side of my head. There was a moment of white-hot pain, and then blackness engulfed me.

  The crow on my shoulder continued to peck at the soft tissue of my earlobe for a while. I could feel the warm, sticky trickle of blood that creeped lazily down the side of my neck. Then my avian attacker turned his attention to the stitches above my ear, and the raw flesh where Harper had hit me with the pipe. I could feel it ripping out the stitches that Harper had so carefully done to stop the bleeding. I felt the wound opening and the crow’s beak exploring the inside of the wound. As he did this, his friends all stood around flapping their dirty, black angel wings and cawing, cheering him on like a ravenous pack of demons.

  When I came to, I was strapped to a metal table. At first I felt disorientated, not quite sure of where I was. I knew that I was naked, and that the metal was cold against my flesh. I was in a room with no windows that felt cool and smelled ever so slightly damp. I was in a basement.

  My head throbbed, like I’d been kicked by a mule. Then I saw Harper walking around in overalls.

  ‘Ah, you’re awake,’ he said in a voice that I had not expected. He sounded much more refined and educated than his appearance would have led you to assume he was.

  ‘Where?’ it was all I could manage to say.

  ‘Shh,’ he said soothingly. ‘You need to rest. I’ve stitched up the wound on your head. I didn’t want you to bleed to death in my office.’

  I was having trouble processing the information. Harper was the one who had hit me with the lead pipe. He had caused my injury. So why now was he showing all of this concern? Why hadn’t he turned me over to the police?

  ‘The police?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t called them. You have been a very naughty boy, though, haven’t you. Coming in here, rummaging through personal things, and trying to take things that aren’t yours.’

  He sounded like he was talking to a child. I was growing more frightened by the second.

  ‘Let me go,’ I said weakly.

  He looked at me sadly and shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘You might tell some one about Daddy, about who he was. Mainly, though, you have to be punished for your behaviour. I can’t let the police in here snooping around, not without them finding out the truth, so I’m going to have to punish you my own way.’

  ‘No,’ I said, struggling against the leather straps that held me to the metal table.

  ‘Shh,’ he said again softly. ‘You’re going to need your strength.’

  He walked away from me and went over to a shelf. He opened a box and pulled out a syringe and a small bottle of clear fluid.

  ‘I’m going to have to put you to sleep for a while now,’ he said. ‘Believe me when I say it’s all for the best. You really wouldn’t want to be awake for the next part.’

  As he filled up the syringe, I screamed, louder than I had ever screamed in my life. I screamed for him to stop. I screamed for help. I screamed until my throat bled and my lungs hurt. It didn’t help. Harper came over and stuck the syringe into a vein in my arm, and as I felt a pressure on my chest, the world slipped away.

  When I came to this time, I could feel Harper was holding my hand.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully,’ he said gently. ‘Do not try and open your eyes, and do not try and speak. If you do the pain will be terrible.’

  I wanted to do both, yet I believed his warning.

  ‘I want you to squeeze my hand once for yes, and twice for no, do you understand.’

  I squeezed his hand once.

  ‘Firstly, there is nothing wrong with your eyes, you will be able to see just fine when I get you out there. Secondly, your mouth is going to be very sore, you just have to try your hardest to keep it still. Do you understand?’

  I squeezed his hand once more.

  ‘Good, I’m going to leave you now to rest for the night, but tomorrow morning your punishment starts. Do you understand?’

  I squeezed his hand once more.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m going to put a small tube into your nose. This is just to keep you hydrated overnight; it’s just a saline solution like you would have in hospital. Tomorrow morning I will feed you through the tube.’

  He inserted the tube through my nose and down into my stomach. Then he left me alone in the darkness.

  The next time I woke up, I could see. Whatever had been covering my eyes had been removed. I saw Harper stood there in front of me. He was removing the saline drip that had been going through the tube in my nose. He took the end of the tube and attached it to a large syringe, containing some brown substance.

  He looked down and noticed I was awake. He smiled at me.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said cheerfully, I hope you’re not in too much pain, I gave you some tramadol in the night, it might mean you’re still a little woozy.’

  I tried to tell him that I was, but I felt a sharp pain in my lips. I couldn’t open my mouth.

  ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Don’t try and speak, I’ve stitched your lips together. I’ve only left enough of a gap for you to breathe if your nose gets blocked.’

&n
bsp; I must have been dreaming. This had to be some kind of surreal nightmare, where the monster seemed so caring and gentle while inflicting such hideous torments upon me. I thrashed around against the straps, banging my head repeatedly against the metal table. Harper ignored it; he carried on connecting the tube in my nose to the syringe.

  ‘This is food,’ he said. ‘I’m pumping it straight into your stomach through the tube in your nose. It contains all of the nutrients you need for a day. It won’t stop you feeling hungry, but it’ll stop you dying of malnutrition.’

  I gave up thrashing, there was no point, there was no escape. My only hope was that whatever punishment Harper had in mind for me, it would be over quickly.

  That was two weeks ago. I’ve spent every hour since then nailed to this cross in this field, a human scarecrow, except I do not scare them, they taunt me. I am a useless scarecrow.

  I have seen cars drive by, but they do not stop. Why would they? All they see is a scarecrow in a field. There is nothing out of the ordinary in that around here. On a few occasions people have walked past the field, walking their dogs. Of course, I can’t open my mouth to scream, and I’m too well fixed to the cross to show them I’m alive through movement. So I just stay here, day and night, sun and rain. My only company is the crows, and they hate me,

  Harper comes twice a day, once in the morning, and once in the evening. He inserts the tube into my nose and feeds me and gives me water. He gives me enough to survive, but not enough to stop suffering.

  I am serving my sentence. Harper says that if I survive until harvest he will let me go, I want to believe him. The thing is I don’t know if I can survive that long. It is months until harvest. The crows will have driven me mad a long time before then. I think they have already.

  FEAR THY NEIGHBOUR

  Timmy looked out of his window and saw the old man, Mr Phelps, looking up at him. Timmy did not like Mr Phelps at all. He was scared of him. The old man lived in the house next door all on his own. Mummy said that Timmy was being silly, that Mr Phelps was just a lonely and nosy old man, but Timmy knew better. Mr Phelps would stand out there on his front porch staring up at Timmy’s house, staring at Timmy, for hours on end.