The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

Lol told Jeavons about the discovery of a man’s body at the foot of Stanner Rocks, torn about by some creature.

‘Who is this man?’ Jeavons said.

‘Unlikely to be a Vaughan. The family died out in that area.’

The lights dimmed again, with a clicking from somewhere in the hollows of the house, and there was another dragged-out crackling in the phone.

38 Big White Bird

‘I do, Jeremy,’ Danny said. ‘I remember.’

They had mugs of tea, another fat ash log on the fire. Danny was sweating, inside and out.

Yes, he remembered that summer. Because it was the Oldfield summer, the summer after Hergest Ridge, the album, came out, and the Ridge was world-famous as the tourists arrived to see where the celebrated composer had flown his model gliders. Only by then, Mike Oldfield was either leaving Kington or had already left.

Bitter-sweet memories. Danny never did get to hang out with Mike in his studio; however, that same year he had managed to persuade the gorgeous Greta Morris to go out with him.

He sat now, in front of the range, watching Jeremy Berrows fizzing into some kind of paranoid life in the wake of that visit from the police. The bloody hugeness of this. It was gonner light up this valley like SAS flares. Sebbie Dacre. Sebbie Dacre. Dead. Killed.

Danny had taken the call when the bloke rang for the vicar, to say that her daughter had found a body at the rocks. The idea of it being Sebbie had never even occurred to him, and Danny thought about him and Jeremy trying to look normal when the police had told them. Cops hadn’t been fooled, he could tell.

And yet they’d gone. They’d looked around The Nant and they’d gone. They were looking for Natalie Craven and the child. He could’ve told them where the child was, but he’d held off. Didn’t want to tell nobody nothing right now.

Had it occurred to the cops that Jeremy might have killed Sebbie and Natalie, too? Had they thought of that? Because Danny sure bloody had.

The lie about the track being blocked so the kid couldn’t come home? The hurried note? The hanging, for God’s sake…

Danny hung on to his mug, letting solid old riffs plash and bang in his head to hold him halfway steady. Let him talk, let it come out.

‘We was only little kids that first holiday,’ Jeremy said.

‘I remember. Little blonde girl.’

‘Playing around the farm, walking down to Kington for ice lollies. We never had a fridge back then, the seventies.’

Danny looked over at the dresser. ‘That’s you and her, ennit, in that photo? Don’t recall seein’ it before.’

‘Always kept it in my bedroom. Kept it in a dark corner, so I couldn’t hardly see it proper, most of the time, but I didn’t want it to fade, see.’

Danny rubbed his beard. ‘Jeremy, I just never imagined. Mabbe because she was real blonde then, and now her’s dark.’

‘Blonde as ever was, underneath. Nobody expects a blonde to dye her hair dark, do they?’

‘Funny Greta don’t know ’bout that. Bloody hairdresser’s, that’s the intelligence centre of the whole valley.’

‘Does it herself. It was… the second time, see. The second holiday they had yere — that was when it really happened.’ Jeremy was fondling the dog’s ears, remembering. There was almost a smile on his face, over the ravages of the rope. ‘Brigid’s ole man, he was a nice enough feller. Quiet sorter bloke, but friendly. Wanting to know all about the farm, what this did, what that did. Tried to help with the shearing, made a bugger of it, but we told him he was doing well for a first-timer. Never talked about Paula. Brigid—’

Jeremy had to stop, tears in his eyes like broken glass. Danny remembered this time well: a damp, forlorn period, heralding the soulless eighties. Mike Oldfield had left the area for ever, and the world had already forgotten about Hergest Ridge.

‘We was only about twelve. Too young for — too young to do much about it, anyway, although…’ Jeremy flicked a sideways look at Danny, like, What am I doing, talking like this to a bloke? ‘We was in the ole barn this day, sheltering from the rain. Brigid was… you know how they get sometimes, girls, women: moody. En’t nothin’ in the world that’s right. No pleasin’ ’em, no talkin’ ’em out of it. So I suppose we kind of quarrelled, the way kids do.’

‘You… quarrel with somebody?’

‘Quarrel was with herself. Me as got hit, mind.’

‘Where?’

‘In the old barn.’

‘No, you fool—’

‘Oh. In the eye.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing. What could I do? What would I want to do?’

Danny nodded. Please, God, don’t let him have done this.

‘Next thing, her arms is round me and her’s sobbin’ away, up against me, all soft. And then we kissed, real gentle. First kiss, Danny.’ Jeremy looked up, flushed. ‘Her fell asleep in my arms. And then I suppose, eventually, I fell asleep, too. Woke up with a black eye. And in love. You know?’

Danny smiled.

‘Puppy love, my mam said. Be over it in no time at all.’

‘They don’t know, do they?’

‘When she left, I didn’t wanner live for a good while — you know how that is?’

Danny nodded. ’Course he knew.

‘Couldn’t sleep much, not for months. Used to creep out and spend whole nights, till dawn, out in the meadow with the ewes, then stagger off to school and fall asleep over the desk. Used to go up the church, times when there wasn’t nobody else there, and I’d pray to God to send her back. Pray to God, Danny. Had a special prayer I’d wrote down. Figured if I kept repeating it, every day, real sincere, he’d bring her back.’

‘God listen?’

‘Not till last summer.’

‘Bloody hell, Jeremy, poor ole Mary Morson never had a hope with you, did she?’

‘Nice girl, mind.’

‘Mary Morson?’

‘They all got their ways.’

‘Bugger me,’ Danny said faintly.

‘I wrote to Brigid, regular, she wrote back. Every week, more or less. The next summer I was thinking, they’ll be back. Lookin’ out for the caravan, you know?’ Jeremy shivered over the fire. ‘I remember, tried to phone her once. Got through to her dad. He said I couldn’t talk to her. Her sounded different — harsh, wound-up. Said never to ring again.’

‘And so you didn’t.’

‘How’d you know that?’

Danny sighed. Jeremy sank down in his chair, all the breath whispering out of him. The dog whimpered.

‘Some’ing yere I en’t getting,’ Danny said. ‘Why couldn’t you talk to her?’

‘Danny…’ Jeremy turned to him, full face, and Danny wasn’t sure which caused the boy the most agony, the twisting of his neck or the thought of what he was saying. ‘Some’ing happened…’