stood up and said brightly, “Ready when you are.”

Outside the rain was no longer dismissable as romantic mist.

Dee said, “Going back along the track, are you?”

“No,” said Hat firmly. “All the way round.”

“Oh. Bit wet along there, you’ll find. And there’s a lot of water in the Creek. You know the crossing, do you?”

“Yes,” said Hat shortly. “No problem.”

“Good. I’ll get back to trying to put an edge on that damn axe. See you tomorrow, Rye.”

“Can’t wait,” grinned Rye, giving him a peck on the cheek.

Hat turned away and set off at a rapid pace. Male chivalry didn’t seem to cut much ice with her so let’s see what a bit of physical equal opportunity did! Behind him he heard the screel of the axe-grinding resume but it was soon drowned in the noise of running waters.

The curve of steep hills to the west formed a natural watershed, funnelling rapid becks down through narrow gills with enough force to continue carving deep passages through the peaty ground levelling off to the tarn. The smaller streams were easily crossable, often with a single step or at most a bit of help from some natural stepping stone, but he deliberately chose a route which required maximum strength and agility. From time to time he glanced back to check Rye’s progress and always found she was matching him stride for stride, so he tried smiling encouragingly in an attempt to imply that he was holding himself in check for her benefit. His reward for such silent braggadocio was just. His foot slipped off a greasy rock into a tumult of icy water and, as his boot filled, she swept past him, laughing, and took the lead. If anything, her chosen route was more difficult than his and soon she’d opened up a gap between them. Eventually, however, not without satisfaction he saw her come to a halt as she reached the bank of Stang Creek itself, the most significant of the many water courses running into the mere. Crossing it was a problem if you didn’t know the exact location of the stepping stones, which weren’t easy to spot, most of them hiding beneath a couple of inches of water, except at times of greatest drought. Your first sight of someone crossing probably got you as close as modern agnosticism could manage to what the disciples felt on the Sea of Galilee after the feeding of the five thousand.

Looking forward to a bit of miracle-making, Hat called out as he approached, “So what’s the hold-up? Top athlete like you, I thought you’d just leap across.”

She turned to look at him and he immediately regretted his frivolous words. Her face was set, her eyes wide and startled. After her previous showing he couldn’t understand why such a small obstacle should cause such a strong reaction, but he hurried forward to reassure her there really wasn’t any problem.

Before he could speak she pointed and said, “Hat…down there…”

He looked downstream, his brain anticipating a distressed animal

…a fox with a gangrenous trapped leg perhaps…or a drowned sheep…

And at first he saw nothing.

Then he made it out.

In the water, mostly submerged, held by the fast moving current against the hidden stepping stones over which he had planned to run so miraculously, was a body.

Or perhaps it wasn’t a body. The eye is easily deceived. Perhaps it was just some green plastic farm-feed bag, blown here by the autumn gales, bulked out by trapped air and floating vegetation.

He ran along the bank, hoping to be able to turn to Rye and with his laughter at her error bring the colour back to her face. But as he stepped out along the hidden stones and bent down for a closer look, he saw there was no cause for laughter here.

Rye was on the bank alongside him.

He looked up at her and said warningly, “I’m going to pull it out.”

She turned away with affected indifference and said, “There’s a boat down there. I’ll take a look.”

He glanced downstream. Thirty yards or so, just before the creek entered the tarn, a flat-bottomed boat was moored.

The policeman in him wanted to say, No. Don’t go near. This could be a crime scene and the less we contaminate it the better.

Instead he said, “Yeah, why don’t you do that?”

He’d only seen one drowned body before, but that had been enough to demonstrate what water without and decay within could do to weak human flesh. Rye looked shaken enough already without that.

She moved away, and he stooped and with both hands took hold of what looked like a waxed outdoor jacket. It was difficult to get a grip but finally he succeeded and began to drag the body out of the water.

“Oh shit,” he said as he got the torso on to the bank.

It was a body all right, but not all of it. Or not all a body. Or only part of a body. Or a body with a bit missing. In fact, was a body a body if you didn’t have all of it?

Which questions of semantics were only occupying his mind to divert it from the fact that the corpse had no head.

He forced himself to concentrate.

From the look of it, the head hadn’t been detached through the depredations of water life. In fact he doubted very much if this fast-flowing freshwater stream harboured denizens capable of inflicting such damage.

No, if he had to make a quick pathological guess based on the evidence of his eyes, he’d say that it had been chopped off. And it had taken several blows.

He dragged the corpse fully out of the water and stood up, glad to put even the distance of his height between himself and the monstrous thing at his feet.

He looked to see where Rye was.

She had clambered aboard the moored boat and was stooping over something.

Now his police training got the upper hand. This was beyond doubt the scene of a crime. He recalled the advice of a police college training officer. “At a crime scene, put your hands in your pocket and play with your dick. That way you won’t be tempted to touch anything else.”

“Rye,” he called, moving towards her.

She stood up and turned to him. Even in these circumstances he could admire the graceful balance of her body as she adjusted easily to the gentle rocking of the boat beneath her feet.

She was holding something, a basket of some kind, the sort that fishermen use, what was it called? A creel, that was it. And she was pulling the straps from the buckles that held the lid down.

She shouldn’t be doing that. And not just because of the risk of contaminating the scene.

No, there was something else.

Precognition, instinct, detective work, call it what you will, but he knew beyond all doubt what was in that basket.

“No!” he cried running towards her. “Rye, leave it!”

But it was always going to be too late.

She pulled up the lid and peered inside.

She tried not to scream or perhaps it was just that her vocal cords were too constricted to produce anything more than a dim echo of the grate of the grindstone on the axehead. For a moment he thought she was going to topple backwards into the water, but her weakening knees flexed, and as if in acknowledgement that something had to go, either herself or what she held in her hands, she hurled the basket from her on to the bank.

It hit the ground, bounced, turned over, and out of it rolled a human head.

Even before it came to a halt at his feet, Hat had recognized that in one sense at least it was not out of place in this setting. If a man has to die, then let him die on his own land.

This was beyond all dispute the head of Geoffrey, Lord Pyke-Strengler of the Stang.

36

the sixth dialogue

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