Turner’s eyes swivelled and rolled in panic, and his mouth chewed on curses that were too terrified to utter themselves. Eventually what emerged was a strangled, ‘I’m… you can’t…’ and then a terse, resigned nod.
‘Good, then.’
The boy and the dogs were released, Turner collected his wounded little vigilante mob together, and they helped each other into the four-wheel drive. He started the engine with a roar and zig-zagged down the track to the open gate, out onto the road, and was gone. Everett and Ardwyn strolled down in its wake, with Matt and Gar behind. She picked up the ‘Farrow Farm’ sign which had been ripped off and thrown into the mud, and brushed off as much of the filth as she could.
‘This place is ours,’ she said, with an intensity that surprised even herself. ‘This is our home. Do you think he understands that?’
‘In all honesty?’ said the deserter. ‘No. He’s had a shock, but a shock isn’t a lesson. He’s been the big man around here too long, and he’ll do what all big men do when they’re beaten. He’ll make excuses for himself – how it was unfair, how we cheated and so on – and once he’s a got a few drinks in him he’ll decide that he needs to hit us harder next time.’
‘It’s all very tiresome,’ she said. ‘Frankly I’ve got more annoying people to worry about. I want this resolved as soon as possible. This place is ours,’ she repeated. ‘Do you feel that, Matt? Do you feel that this your home?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘And what would you do to protect it? To protect me?’
‘Anything, Mother.’
‘Anything is a very big word, Matt. I wonder, can you live up to its promise?’
He squared himself. ‘I can, Mother. You can count on me.’
‘I hope so.’ She turned back to the deserter. ‘A poet once said, “good fences make good neighbours”. Everett, I would like you and Matt to please show Mr Turner where the boundaries of acceptable behaviour lie, and demonstrate to him what happens if they are crossed.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
PART THREE
PLANT OUT SEEDLINGS
1
BOUNDARIES
‘ARE YOU SURE THIS IS A SHORTCUT?’ SAID KATE.
‘Of course, I’m sure.’ Suzie threw her rucksack over the wall.
‘I don’t think this is even a proper footpath.’
‘Look,’ said Suzie, pointing at the map. ‘We just follow this fence line here. It cuts off this big triangle here and saves us a good hour. We can be at the Laughing Goose by lunchtime.’
‘But what if there’s a farmer?’
‘Then we just claim that we’re a pair of idiots who got lost because they can’t read a map properly. Which in your case is true.’ Suzie glanced up and down the lane to make sure that there weren’t any passing cars to see them, then climbed over the wall and into the field on the other side. ‘Come on, twinkle-toes!’ she called.
‘We are so going to get arrested,’ Kate grumbled, and tossed her rucksack over the wall too.
‘Hey! That nearly hit me!’
‘Did it? Oh, I’m so sorry, must be because I’m an idiot.’ She climbed over the wall and dropped down next to her friend.
‘Cow.’
‘Moo.’
They grinned at each other, re-shouldered their bags and set off along the fence that ran perpendicular to the wall, uphill and into a copse of trees.
It had been a last-minute decision to go out for a day’s ramble through the fields and down to Fradley Junction, where the Trent and Mersey Canal met the Coventry Canal. Suzie had gained an unexpected day off because some workmen renovating the offices next door had sliced through a power cable and cut the electricity to the whole building, and Kate’s planned trip with her on-off boyfriend Gethin had fallen through because of some football-related thing, so Kate had messaged her to say why don’t we do something – thinking an epic shopping spree – and Suzie had come back out of nowhere with it’s a sunny day why don’t we go for a walk in the countryside and to her own enormous surprise Kate had said sure, why not? Apparently Suzie had fond memories of a childhood holiday cruising the canal and had stopped at this place called the Laughing Goose Café, which sounded fun. So Kate had gone into the loft and dragged out the dusty old rucksack that she hadn’t used since failing her Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition at the age of fourteen, bought some sandwiches from the Co-op across the road and then it was now.
According to the map this was called Drake’s Hill. There was no path following the fence and the grass was long and still wet from the rain, and pretty soon Kate’s jeggings were wet to the knee. ‘I’m getting soaked here,’ she complained.
Suzie laughed. ‘Not that I’m trying to distract you in any way, but ooh look, babby lambs!’
She pointed to the field on their left, on the other side of the fence, where sheep were grazing accompanied by the tiny white dots of very new lambs. The nearest she could see were feeding, with their heads butting their mother’s underside and their tails waggling voraciously.
‘Oh, that is so cute!’
‘Yeah, but imagine breastfeeding something that’s headbutting you in the tits all the time. Respect, mama sheep.’
They carried on walking, and soon found themselves amongst the trees, having to step over roots and duck to avoid low-hanging branches that were just coming into leaf. The girls had to concentrate more on where they were putting their feet, so when Suzie stopped suddenly, Kate almost ran into her.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You okay?’
Suzie continued to stare straight ahead at whatever had made her stop, and slowly raised her hand to point with a shaking finger. ‘What’s that?’ she whispered.
Kate moved to one side to get a better view. Further ahead of them, half-hidden by the swaying branches of a birch, was something that looked like a red and white
