had called it diplomacy.
‘I want to talk to you about Owen Fox, Mr Leach.’ ‘Him? I heard he got a bit of a shock. Found out what he’s been up to, have they?’
‘Do you know anything about it?’
‘I know I’m not likely to shed any tears over him,’ said Leach. ‘I’ve got my sons to think of.’
Mark frowned. It wasn’t the response he had expected. ‘What about your sons?’
‘What about them?’ Leach looked suddenly even less friendly. ‘I hope you’re not interested in my lads, Ranger Junior. What’s your mate been teaching you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Some folk took it out on those two youths in the quarry. But personally, I would have trusted those youths a damn sight more with my boys than I’d ever trust that friend of yours.’
Now Mark was confused. The conversation seemed
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to have drifted away from him to some other subject. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Who do you think?’ Leach laughed, without any humour. ‘I’m talking about the Lone Ranger. God in a red jacket. Your mate, Owen Fox. Do you know the kids round here call him Father Christmas? When he goes in the schools, they think Santa has arrived. I bet he likes to get the little boys on his knee and give them a nice present, all right.’
For a moment, Mark didn’t understand what the farmer was saying.
‘What’s up?’ said Leach. ‘Bounced you on his lap a time or two as well, has he? I’d have thought you were too old for him. I reckon he likes them a bit younger, the dirty bastard.’
Mark felt the anger rushing up through his body before he even understood the reason for it. It was a physical response, visceral and frightening, a great flood of rage burning through his veins and overwhelming his judgement. Before he knew what was happening, he had hurled himself at the farmer, lashing out wildly with his fists.
Leach spread his shoulders, drew back a meaty hand and punched Mark in the mouth, knocking him down. The farmer laughed, thrilled at the chance to hit somebody. Mark got back up, flushed and furious, but his blows were uncontrolled and fell harmlessly against Leach’s chest and shoulders. The farmer knocked him to the floor twice more with blows to the face, until the Ranger was bloodied and crying.
Mark wiped the blood from his mouth and touched
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a loose tooth. He knew he was helpless. But the only thing he could think of was that he wanted to tell Leach that he wasn’t crying because of the pain.
Then Leach noticed his sons watching, wide-eyed, from the corner of the shippon. He looked at Mark on the floor and saw that he was only a boy, too, beaten and humiliated.
‘Go on, clear off,’ he said.
As soon as the Ranger had gone, Warren Leach felt a black depression descend on him. The boys had vanished somewhere. They didn’t even have the excuse of the calf needing attention now. The animal had brought in a bit of money at market. Not much, but enough to pay a fraction of the bills. They had food on the table for a day or two, and a cupboard full of bottles of whisky, which was one of the necessities these days, Leach was discovering.
The boys had gone somewhere they didn’t think he would find them. They didn’t want to be near their father any more, he realized that. Why should his own sons avoid him? He was sure it was because of their mother. After all these years, she seemed to have become his enemy. He was convinced she was in touch with the boys somehow, turning them against him. He didn’t know how she was doing it, but she was poisoning their brains. They had always been such good lads before.
Leach was aware he hadn’t always been a perfect father. And he shouldn’t have let Will and Dougie see him hitting the young Ranger. At first, he had thought
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they would admire him, see him as the strong father he used to be, a man who was afraid of no one. But the feeling didn’t last long. It became mingled with a sense of shame. The boy he had beaten could just as easily have been one of his own sons, in a few years’ time.
When Leach tried to think about what had happened in his life over the last couple of months, his mind shied and balked at the enormity of it. It was a problem so huge that he couldn’t contemplate it, couldn’t even begin to consider how to cope with it. He could only follow helplessly the little trickles of thought that ran this way and that in his brain, seeking a way out of the nightmare.
And finally, Warren Leach faced the possibility that he might not be around to see his sons reach Mark Roper’s age.
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When Ben Cooper and Diane Fry drove into the yard at Ringham Edge Farm early next morning, they had to swerve to avoid the front bumper of a milk tanker. When they got out, they could hear Warren Leach yelling at the driver.
‘What good is that to me?’ he was shouting. ‘How am I supposed to survive?’
‘It’s not my fault, mate. Your cell count is way up. You know the way it works as well as I do.’
‘They’re robbing me blind. I need that milk cheque to live on.’
Cooper saw Leach and the driver facing each other. They had their hands on their hips, and both looked angry and stubborn. Leach had been loading a stack of heavy fencing posts into a trailer attached to the back of his tractor.
‘I can’t help you,’ said the driver. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. Do you want me to take this milk or not?’ ‘What’s the bloody point?’
The driver finally lost patience. ‘Suit yourself then. I can’t hang around any longer.’
He got back in his cab and the diesel engine rumbled.
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Leach grabbed a fencing post and hurled it like a javelin. It bounced off the back of the tanker, leaving a small dent in the paintwork above the rear number plate.
