Jaydn, clearly none too happy about being the centre of attention again, and so soon after the previous embarrassing experience, made to stand.
‘It’s alright,’ Harry said, raising a hand to stop Jaydn from standing up again, ‘you can just tell us from where you are. You don’t have to get up and deliver it like a speech. Well, not every time, anyway.’
Clearly relieved, Jaydn sat back down, and then quickly told everyone what he had said the day before to Harry, Liz and Gordy about the paint found by the pathologist at the house of the second victim, Hutchison.
‘So we’re watching Brave Heart then?’ Matt asked. ‘I’ve seen it, but I don’t mind seeing it again.’
‘No, we’re not watching Brave Heart,’ Harry said, wondering why that film seemed suddenly so popular. ‘So, about the paint, and what Jaydn just told us about his clearly very exciting, life-changing school trip . . .’
Harry pressed play on the laptop.
For a moment, the screen was blank, and the only sound in the room was that of popcorn being munched. Then words appeared on the screen, explaining little more than the fact that what they were about to watch was a Central Office of Information Film for the Health and Safety Executive.
‘It’s not exactly the Star Wars intro, is it?’ Matt said, his words muffled by the amount of popcorn he was shovelling in.
On the screen the words faded to be replaced by a cloudy sky beneath which sat the black slab of a rough horizon, onto which then ran the silhouettes of six children. Then, above them, one word appeared in yellow: APACHE.
Harry paused the film.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘any thoughts so far?’
Silence. The kind of silence, Harry thought, that just sits there, staring at you, almost like it’s daring you to challenge it. Which he was more than happy to do.
‘I’ve done an extra little bit of digging,’ Harry said, ‘and here’s two things I’ve found out.’ He raised his left hand, index finger standing tall. ‘One, Apaches wore eagle feathers in their head dress.’ He then raised his middle finger as well. ‘And two, the body paint they used was made up out of the ingredients our friendly pathologist found in the paint at Hutchison’s house.’
‘You think someone’s dressing up as an Apache to commit murder?’ Jim asked. ‘Really? But that’s crazy!’
‘Eagle feathers and war paint,’ Harry said. ‘I know, it seems far-fetched, but . . .’
‘It seems crackers,’ Matt said. ‘Who’d do that? And why?’
‘I’m not sure I can answer that,’ Harry said. ‘But I think this film is important. I promise you, it’ll become very clear as it plays out. At least I hope it will.’
Blank faces still stared back at him and Harry took a very, very deep breath, half convinced he should just explain everything, but he wanted the film to have the same impact on the team as it had had on himself just over an hour ago.
‘And,’ said Harry, ‘I want you to remember as you watch this that it was shown to primary school children in the late seventies and early eighties. Primary school children, would you believe? You’ll soon understand, I think, why it’s got a pretty notorious reputation. Ready?’
Everyone nodded, Matt somewhat more enthusiastic than the others.
Harry unclicked pause and allowed Apache to play on.
At first, the movie played out through scenes of a group of primary-school age children dressed up as Apache warriors and running around a farm. It was very much of its time, the clothes and the overall colour palette screaming ‘This Is The Seventies’ almost too loudly. There was a rough, ragged nature to the film, but it was clear that this was on purpose, and Harry wondered if it had been done to unsettle the viewer from the off. The children in the movie looked like they were having quite the time of it, running around, pretending to shoot at each other. But then, at just over five minutes in, the first death happened. Harry turned his eyes from the screen to the team to watch their reaction as, in the film, one of the children, a blonde girl, jumped up onto the trailer being towed by a tractor they were all chasing. Just as the girl cheered victory for slaying their foe, the trailer bounced over a bump and she tumbled forwards, sending her to fall head first under the wheels of the trailer, the camera hovering just long enough over her broken toy rifle covered in blood.
‘Dear god, no!’ Gordy gasped. ‘And they showed this to kids? What kind of messed up government thinks that’s a good idea?’
Harry saw just a flicker of shock ripple through the others.
The film continued. Coming up to eleven minutes in, the second death occurred, a boy drowning in a pit of slurry, his body disappearing into the filth as he screamed out for his dad.
Harry figured he could stop the film there, but it was important that it played out. They all needed to see it, to understand what it could mean, why he believed it was important.
The film eventually drew itself to a close twenty-six minutes later, a funeral party described to the viewers by the voice of one of the dead children wishing he was there with his family. Then, to add an extra touch of ghoulish awfulness, a roll call of child deaths on farms spooled down the righthand side of the screen, all of which happened in the year before the film itself was made.
Harry closed the laptop then turned to face his team, sitting himself down on the table.
‘They don’t make them like they used to, do they?’ Matt said.
‘And thank god for that,’ Gordy chipped in. ‘Who in their right mind thinks it’s okay to show that to children? Why would you? What the hell were they thinking? Parents must have been up in arms!’
Harry
