The Tratthen Bow - Chapter 3
A withered harvest, decades in the making; a giant fish claimed from the river; the reaper after hours; a spinning ship's wheel; a three-quarter circle...
[Author note] More violence, both recollected and in the moment.
The dark shadows of Petfield's hands hovered over the surface of the round table. His sausage fingers pinched together the abandoned pint glasses from their insides – four on the left and three on the right. Some were thinly cobwebbed with drying beer suds, while undrunk dregs sloshed around in the bottom of others. The glasses chattered against each other as he moved through the empty bar room. He paused by the fire exit, pressing the damp bar towel, that was draped across his forearm, against the BEWARE OF THE DOG sign on the door. With a series of awkward jerking movements of his body he managed to absorb a set greasy fingermarks into the beery flannel. Above his head, a long wooden shelf, fixed to the wall a foot below the ceiling, was lined with different bottles of craft beer.
The aroma of cold fish and chips, rising from a half-eaten meal, had stained the air around one of the long tables by the window; a green smear of mushy peas tainting the flank of a pried-open beer-battered carcass, with scraps of white flesh clinging to the inside. Behind the table, a backwash of light, emanating from one of the electric lanterns on the exterior wall, was shining through the bloodless English tartan of the pale curtains; a semi-transparent pattern of overlapping blue and white squares. With his right knee he nudged the overhang of the long camper van cushion back onto the bench seat.
He made his way between the empty tables. Above his head the wrinkled leather straps of old coachman reins, that had been threaded through small gaps between the exposed ceiling beams and the plasterwork, spread rope-like shadows across the flagstone floor. It was the work of one of the previous landlords. Though they had been described as untidy in reviews of the pub, and had been mentioned in passing as a potential fire hazard by a health inspector, he had kept them as they were, and admonished anyone who attempted swing on them; his voice booming from the behind the beer taps across the crowded bar room –
“Oi, John! You'll bring the ceiling down on us, you fat bastard!”
He shuffled sideways around the upright planking of the bar, setting his clinking burden down on the perforated aluminium draining board. The light from an exposed ceiling bulb, hidden from his view, reflected in the tap handles, forming a brassy pinpoint in the arcing surface of each glass; his warped image miniaturised in every shiny bar room surface like a swarm of trapped insects.
At the far end of the bar, a heavy-set man had ignored the call to drink up. He remained hunched over on his stool, the pint glass in front of him anchored to the counter by a liquid amber foundation. A vine of withered grapes, tarnished gold with age, suspended in the rafters above his head, were mirrored by their own framed image – a black and white photograph of the pub interior, taken during the 1920s, mounted on a nearby wall.
'Give him five minutes,' thought Petfield. He returned to the pint glasses, emptying them into the sluice under the draining board, then arranging them, one-by-one, upside-down in the dishwasher.
The man sitting silently at the bar, with his head bowed, showed no sign of finishing his drink. The landlord paused in his tidying up and checked his watch. A couple of minutes had passed.
“Okay mate, I've been generous. It's time to go home,” he said.
When there was no response, he raised his voice:
“You not hear the bell? Go on. Up on your plates.”
It occurred to Petfield that the man might be deaf. He racked his brains for a memory of serving him earlier in the evening. 'He must have come in late,' he thought 'One of the girls must have seen to him when I stepped out.'
“Alright, out now, before I come over there and throw you out,” he said.
Gray raised his head from his pint. The palm of his right hand carelessly smeared itself across his stubbled chin. As he shuffled around to face the man behind the bar, his left shoe dropped down from the footrest of the stool. It hung in the air an inch above the stone floor, moving back and forth like a pendulum that had recently been stirred back to life.
“Reckon you could take me?” he said.
Petfield placed the damp towel in balled-up heap next to the beer pumps. He looked the stranger up and down as if he was appraising a used car without wanting to appear overly-interested.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I reckon I could. But it's academic anyway, because I'll be on the blower to some people who will come and help me throw you out. And while they're at it, they'll make you think twice about ever setting foot in here again.”
He was raised a thick finger, pointing it like a gun barrel off to the side.
“Now you, on the other hand, don't look like the kind of chap who has any mates.”
“That’s funny, you look like the type who has to buy his.”
Gray's eyes had settled on the head of an enormous pike. It garnished the flank of a square pillar that formed part of a supporting arch across the room. The wide-open jaws were large enough to bite off a man's head. It had been mounted on a wooden shield with an embossed rim, the weight of the fishing trophy pulling the plaque askew.
“I'm looking for information, about a girl,” he said. “After that I'll go.”
“Look around you, they've all gone home, mate.” said Petfield, addressing the empty bar room with a flourish of his left arm. “Guess what? None of them fancied taking your nasty arse along for the ride.”
Slowly and unsteadily the stranger rose to his feet. As soon as he was upright he began to amble sluggishly towards the bar, dragging his left foot an inch or so behind him. Petfield cast a downward glance at the tire iron that he kept on a shelf behind the counter.
The man came to within a few feet of him, then planted himself on another stool. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a photograph of a young girl and pressed it down on the bar in front of the landlord.
Petfield gave it the once over. Her long, dark hair was uncombed and slightly wavy, framing an elongated oval face; a pale, a vaguely middle-eastern complexion. Her eyes were closed behind the panes of her thick-framed librarian glasses. She was standing in a living room that looked like it might have been furnished by a parent or a grandparent; a bottle of whiskey placed almost beyond reach, on top of a tall china hutch.
“No, never seen her,” he said.
“Funny that, because I showed it to a few of your patrons earlier. They all recall her working here. Behind the bar.”
Petfield gave the photo another cursory examination.
“Oh yeah, come to think of it I do remember her. She didn't work out. Always standing like she was about to piss in her tights. You need to be more outgoing in this line of work.”
“What I hear is that the pair of you were a couple. You lived together over the pub.”
Gray pointed to towards the loose tethers dangling from the ceiling beams.
“Fuckin hell,” said Petfield under his breath. He scowled down at the photograph as if it had wronged him.
“What's that?”
“Some people can’t keep their mouths shut, can they?”
“Guilty conscience?”
“Fuck off.”
He glanced down again at the photo of the girl.
“We've all made rash decisions we're not proud of. So I shagged her one night. Then afterwards she got really clingy.”
“You're aware that she's dead?”
“I heard they fished her out the river.”
“I've got some questions.”
Petfield picked up the towel again and began wiping down surfaces.
“Such as?”
“Why would a nice young girl like Kayleigh want to shack up with an unpleasant, middle-aged, wife murdering bastard like yourself.”
Gray watched the landlord bridle then rein himself in before his anger could surface.
“Maybe she saw something in me. And, by the way, the wife was self-defence.”
“That's not how the judge saw it. You got eighteen years and you were out in less than two. Which begs the question: Who did you grass on?”
Petfield put down the towel. He stared at Gray as if though he would like nothing more than to reach over the bar and cave his head in.
“I'm no grass.”
“Maybe not, but you agreed to do someone a favour, didn't you?”
“You're old bill ain't you... Yeah you are... Which begs the question what are you doing here? Because I know whatever it is, it's not official business.”
“Is that what happened? The local force pave your way out of the nick?” said Gray. “It wouldn't surprise me.”
“I've got to go out back.”
“Don't wander too far.”
“What, from you. Give it a rest.”
Petfield passed through an open door behind the bar. From where he was sitting, Gray could still see part of his shadow through the narrow gap. He thought that he could hear soft clicking. He leaned over on the stool. The landlord's fingers were moving across the touch-screen of a mobile phone.
“I spoke to Sheila's parents,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “You know no-one told them you were being released. They found out through friends. Couldn't believe it. They wrote to their MP and everything.”
“Like I said, it was self defence.”
“Her old man said you were a nasty bastard. She was always coming round with bruises that she wouldn't talk about. Too proud to ask for help, he said. Just like her mum.”
Petfield pressed the send button on his phone. There was an electronic whooshing sound as the text message was dispatched into the digital ether.
You know she went in at Marwood Lock,” said Gray “Kayleigh, I mean. Of course you do. You were there with her when it happened.”
“Whatever you say mate,” said the landlord, sliding his phone in his side pocket, as he emerged from the doorway.
Gray reached into the deep pocket of his trousers. With some difficulty he managed to extract the evidence bag. He laid it down with a thump on the bar top. Petfield glanced down at the bloody screwdriver. For a spilt second, a current of panic appeared to disrupt his façade, then it was gone.
“I found it laid out for me when I visited Marwood,” said Gray. “I checked it for fingerprints. Somebody's going out of their way to fit you up, and they're not being subtle about it either.”
The landlord pushed back a handful of grey hair.
“Did you ever think you might be the one in the frame?”
“I'm not the one who's bang to rights for murder.”
Petfield absently pushed to screwdriver back towards Gray.
“We went down to the river one evening,” he said. “It was her idea. A romantic moonlight stroll after closing time. We get down to the bank and she starts pushing me. It was playful at first, then she started getting rough, like she was angry with me, but there was no emotion in her face.”
“You pushed her back?”
“Of course I didn't. She was like a fucking twig. I held her wrists and told her to stop being a silly bint. She settles down for a while, but gets really sullen. Won’t talk to me. Then suddenly out comes the screwdriver, right at me. I took it off her, and...”
“Self defence.”
Petfield swatted the damp towel limply at the bar.
“I was born into a line of dragon slayers. There are people in my family tree who slayed monsters.”
“And you moved onto helpless women. Your ancestors would be proud.”
The landlord leaned over the bar towards Gray.
“Your problem is you're bleeding out through a wound you can't even see. Buckling under chains that you wont acknowledge...”
He tapped the side of his eye socket with an index finger.
“...I've seen your end.”
“And I've seen your's. It's got vertical bars in it.”
Petfield continued to lean forward. His face was now inches away from Gray's.
“I'll stand up in court and tell them she told me to do it. She wanted it. They'll let me go, just like last time.”
Grays hands seemed to rise up independently. They grabbed Petfield around the shoulders and attempted to haul him across the bar. The landlord drew his head back a few inches then slammed his brow into his assailant's nose. Both men staggered backward, Petfield leaning for support on the shelf below the racks of upturned spirit bottles, as Gray careened off his stool and into the tables, triggering a chorus of wood against bare stone.
“You stupid fucking bastard, who told you, you could fight?” yelled the landlord, as the door to the pub burst open. Gray felt hands hauling him to his feet. The red face of Sergeant Worboyes loomed over him.
“What the hell are you doing here PC Gray,” he said.
“I was about to arrest this man for the murder of Kayleigh Summerhayes.”
“What murder?”
“There's evidence on the bar.”
“No there isn't.”
“I'll fucking kill you,” bellowed Petfield, clutching the side of his face in agony.
“Okay then, threatening to injure or kill a police officer in the line of duty, or doesn't that count as an offence any more?”
“You should count yourself lucky that it's only a threat,” said Worboyes. Turning his attention to one of the officers who were restraining Gray, he said:
“Get him in an unmarked car. Drive him somewhere out in the countryside where there isn't any public transport, then drop him off.”
The policeman nodded.
“What did I ever do to piss you off Constable Gray,” enquired Worboyes.
Gray stared back at him in mute fury, the blood pouring from his broken nose.
“You're a cog that fell out of the machine,” said Worboyes. “Now you're about to be swept-up off the factory floor.”
They dragged him out through the door. Above his head, the pub sign – a ship's wheel – spun clockwise in the light breeze. The building underneath remained fixed on its present course.
They bundled him into the back seat of one of the cars. Gray heard the officer repeating Worboyes' instructions through the driver-side window. A few seconds later they pulled away.
In the red wake of the vehicle's brake lights, a fox carrying the limp silhouette of a bird in it jaws, padded across the darkened lane and was swallowed by the hedgerow.