The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

A shedload of questions here. And if he followed Sebbie now to wherever he was going, then he wouldn’t have broken his promise to Gret, would he?

Sebbie parked at the side of the road and Danny come in behind him just as he was climbing down: Sebbie Three Farms, all six foot whatever of him, tough-thin, like streaky bacon.

Sebbie put on his tweed cap. Always wore a cap because his reddish hair was sparse now and his skin was pale as watered milk. A walking invitation to skin cancer, was Sebbie, and yet he always walked tall and straight, like he was defying the sun.

Danny come right up behind him. ‘Mr Dacre!’

It was how you talked to people in these parts, only real close friends using first names.

Sebbie didn’t turn round at once, like a normal person would; he kept on walking towards the pub door and, when he did turn, it was only to flick a bleep at the Range Rover to lock the doors. At which point he deigned to notice Danny.

‘Mr Thomas, how’re you? Working with Parry now, hey? Diversification — only course open in these constricting times.’

‘You happen to ’ave a minute, Mr Dacre?’

Sebbie frowned. ‘People say a minute when they mean half an hour.’

His pale eyes had screwed up a bit now, cautious. Last thing he’d want would be Danny in the pub with him, where they’d be overheard, and the word spread over half of two counties by sundown.

’Cause Sebbie knew what this was about, nothing surer.

‘I’ll keep it short, then,’ Danny said. ‘Three of your boys was rampaging over The Nant last night, loosing off the kind of gun you don’t normally see this side of Credenhill base. And the end result—’

‘Mr Thomas—’

‘End result of this bit of a farm-invasion is this.’ Danny touched his forehead, winced.

‘Doesn’t look like a bullet wound to me, Mr Thomas, but more to the point—’

‘More to the point, Mr Dacre, is my wife’s car gets battered off the track and looks to me, bearing in mind he’s eleven year old, like we could be looking at a write-off.’

‘And you saw who it was, hey?’

‘Your boys, it was. Like I said.’

‘My boys? My boys?’

‘Said you was payin’ ’em to shift foxes.’

Sebbie squinted, like the sun had come out. ‘That sound awfully likely to you, Mr Thomas?’

‘I’m tellin’ you what they said. Three Welshies from down the Valleys, sounded like.’

‘And you saw them actually damaging your car, did you, these boys? At night.’

‘Men, they was, more like. And I sure enough seen—’

‘You informed the police, obviously.’

‘I sure enough seen one of the buggers come over and clobber me with the butt end of his fancy gun.’

‘And naturally you’ve told the police about that, too.’

‘No.’ Danny glanced down at his boots. ‘Not yet.’

‘And you’re saying these men claimed to be working for me. That’s an actual allegation you’d be prepared to make in front of witnesses and my solicitor?’

Danny fell silent. You forgot how hard it was getting a feller like this to put his hands up to anything. Outsiders, townies, they didn’t believe Sebbie’s sort existed any more, thought they was a joke — music-hall villains, feudal stuff out of history. But even now, with the countryside shrinking faster than a pair of market-stall jeans, Danny could still point you out five or six like Sebbie within twenty or thirty miles.

Sebbie gave out a look that was all but a mouthful of spit. ‘I thought you’d know better, Mr Thomas, than to come accosting me in the street with this kind of half-baked drivel.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘They named me?’

‘Aw, come on, everybody knows it, Mr Dacre. Folk around yere en’t daft. Nobody understands it, why you’re letting foreigners in with illegal shooters, but they knows it’s down to you. And they knows there’s history between you and Jeremy Berrows.’

‘Who does?’ Sebbie was half-smiling, hadn’t broken sweat. ‘Who knows all this? Give me some names, Mr Thomas, hey? Give me some names and I’ll sue their arses orf in a court of law.’

Danny said nothing at all. Who was he supposed to drop in the slurry? You didn’t, did you? Not to a man who never forgot a name. Danny felt ashamed. He should’ve brought Gomer along, like Gret said; Gomer, to put it mildly, wasn’t fazed by nobs. Danny hadn’t said half of what he’d planned to say, and already it was all going pear-shaped on him. His head throbbed and his vision was lopsided somehow, so that he saw Sebbie Dacre like Sebbie was some tripping image, an acid flashback: thin neck craning out of the collar of his Viyella, and his head, under the beak of his cap, like a hawk’s watching a rabbit.

‘Easy target, en’t he, Jeremy Berrows?’ Danny said.

‘Mr Thomas, Jeremy Berrows would be an easy target for the Women’s Institute bowling team. Now geddout of my hair.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Danny said. ‘How come you live next to Jeremy all his life, and suddenly you’re turnin’ the heat on?’

Sebbie just looked and half turned away like the very sight of Danny was starting to offend him.

‘Or mabbe it’s the woman,’ Danny said. ‘Nat’lie.’

Sebbie swayed just slightly and then he came out with this one, real nonchalant, like he’d just been ferreting in Danny’s mind.

‘You still using drugs, Mr Thomas?’

‘That en’t bloody fair!’ Danny blurted, before he could stop hisself. His head pulsed and he felt faint.

‘Ain’t fair?’ Sebbie’s head shot forward like Danny’s words had pressed a button. ‘I’ll tell you what ain’t fair. What ain’t fair is what’s happening to the countryside under this fucking government. If they persist in trying to stop us hunting with hounds — make us subject to licensing and regulations, put the countryside into a suburban strait-jacket… if they go on trying to challenge our traditional way of dealing with vermin… then they can bloody well expect what one might call Less Orthodox Methods of Pest Control.’

At this point, Gwilym Bufton, the feed dealer, came across the road towards the Eagle, with another feller, and they exchanged ’ow’re yous with Sebbie, and Sebbie raised two fingers to his cap in a kind of mock-humble salute. When they’d gone into the pub, he came a bit closer to Danny, his pinky eyes shining. The street was quiet around them, and Danny had the feeling of folks at their windows, like this really was a showdown in a Western town starring the big-time rancher and the shabby dust-bowl farmer who couldn’t afford a haircut. Sebbie’s voice was low.

‘What I’m saying is, if they’re going to make us illegal, turn decent people into poachers, then they shouldn’t be surprised to find bands of brigands roaming by night.’

Danny was thrown — this was surreal. ‘What the hell’s that mean? You’re supposed to be a bloody magistrate!’

‘And with more of our local police stations closing every year,’ Sebbie said, ‘they won’t have the means or the manpower to counter it. Look, I don’t know what happened to your damn car, and I expect you’ve got another half-dozen clapped-out wrecks in your buildings to replace it, but I can tell you one thing… this is only the start. And if you’re not part of it, you should stay at home, get yourself quietly stoned and keep your nose out, eh? Word to the wise, Mr Thomas, word to the wise.’

He turned away. Danny didn’t move, couldn’t believe what he’d heard. This was a magistrate. He shouted after Sebbie Dacre, ‘Why’d you tell them Welshies Jeremy Berrows didn’t own his own farm? Why’d you tell ’em Jeremy was your tenant?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You know what, Sebbie?’ Danny pointing the finger. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you’re full of shit. I reckon you’re covering some’ing up, boy.’